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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUM}
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden 59ge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: LOWNDES "BUILDING, ATLANTA. GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
Ministers $1.50 per Tear.
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. UPSHAW. .... Editor
A. E. RAMSAUR, - - - Managing Editor
LENG. 'BROUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
Entered at the Post Office tn Atlanta, Ga„
as second-class matter.
<T R A 9 tL~>
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.
Preacher and Statesman.
Bishop Warren A. Candler, of the M. E. Church,
South, is one of the most inspiring all-round men
in America. He is an intellectual colossus, a
preacher of old-time orthodoxy and cyclonic power,
and whenever he touches upon things of state he
proves himself a statesman. His recent articles
on “Immigration” in the Atlanta Journal, are ad
ded emphasis of this latter fact. Few men of his
time are leaving a more wholesome impress for all
that is best in the cause of God and humanity
than Warren A. Candler.
A Solution of the Pace Problem.
There are a great many problems the right solu
tion of which would greatly enrich the moral, social
and commercial life of the South; but since we
must discuss only one or two of these at a time,
we have thought it wise at this particular time to
call the attention of our readers to the healthy
agitation and proposed solution of what w T e know
as the negro problem now being discussed by Ex-
Governor W. J. North en, of this city.
Governor Northen is a high-minded Christian
gentleman, an ideal citizen, a man of business acu
men, and therefore, one whose suggestions along
any line deserve our thoughtful consideration. He
is now, and has been for some time, at his own
expense, going up and down the state of Georgia
making speeches, organizing leagues and otherwise
waging a campaign which looks to the moral bet
terment of all the people, and which proposes a
final settlement for the problem of problems so far
as the South is concerned.
There are many who doubt the practicality of
Governor Northen’s plan, but surely there are none
who doubt the truthfulness and strength of the
theory. He argues and urges that the Christian
religion must yet come to our aid and solve for us
the problem of the negro. Since the riot in this
city several months ago, the eyes and ears of all
America have been turned this way to catch one
helpful suggestion concerning the negro and his fu
ture in the South—which is to ever be his home.
Without committing ourselves to any one plan
of procedure or passing upon the perfect practi
cality of any man’s solution, we do desire to com
mend the unselfish working of this Christian pa
triot, and beg you to weigh well his every word.
One thing is certain —there would be no race prob
lem if everybody had religion. The Christian re
ligion has worked wonders in the past and is
stronger today than at any time since the ascen
sion of its Founder.
When Voltaire’s dragon teeth had produced the
French Revolution, the nation abolished the Sab
bath, declared the Bible a fable and proclaimed the
banishment of God from the universe. The butch-
Editor
Managing Editor
Pulpit Editor
The Golden Age for April 25, 1907.
ers raised their battle-axes and Paris fell —the
bloodiest page in the book of time. Then the
Christian religion stepped forward and with white
hands bound up the stricken, bleeding nation. All
other systems fail, but the Christian never. Jesus
was cradled in a manger, but now inhabiteth eter
nity. Once he stood single-handed and alone, but
now his army dead numbers more people than were
ever on the earth at one time, and his army living
is the one invincible phalanx in all this world. If
it can’t solve the race problem, we know not what
to recommend.
It has been in the problem-solving business for
the past two thousand years, and its reputation
has not suffered with the waning centuries.
It has slain ten thousand foes of the people, has
whispered words of cheer and comfort in a million
ears of distress, and has bound up the bruised and
broken-hearted wherever its holy presence has been
felt. It is the staff of the pilgrim, the star of the
sailor and the light-house of the lost. It is the
shield and breastplate of the soldier, the unfailing
friend of the friendless, the undying hope of the
hopeless and the death night ’s only dawn.
With all our heart we commend it to one and all
as a solution of not only the negro problem, but all
other problems as well.
*9 n
A Marriage of Hearts.
The Golden Age has no “society column” in
which to chronicle marriages and other social
events, but the recent marriage of Rev. Walter
Holcomb to Miss Julia Baxter Jones in Cartersville,
Ga., holds such peculiar interest for our readers
that we feel constrained to mention it on this
page. Mr. Holcomb was for several years the
trusted co-laborer of Rev. Sam P. Jones, and we
are sure that if the great evangelist could have
spoken, he would have given a father’s blessing
upon the marriage of his youngest daughter to
his beloved “son in the Gospel.” This gifted and
consecrated young preacher wins a beautiful young
woman to bless him in his Tennessee home and his
evangelistic labors, and The Golden Age, in which
Sam Jones was an original stockholder, wafts its
heartiest congratulations.
•9 19
Pfdley in Atlanta.
The many admirers of Rev. C. A. Ridley, of Live
Oak, Fla., the gifted preacher and author who has
made so many friends among the readers of The
Golden Age, will be interested to learn that he won
new laurels during his recent visit to Atlanta.
Coming to the city for the express purpose of in
ducing Dr. L. G. Broughton to go to Live Oak and
assist him in a meeting, he narrowly escaped being
severely injured in the street car accident from
which Dr. and Mrs. Broughton are now suffering.
At Dr. Broughton’s request, he remained in Atlanta
several days, speaking to Dr. Broughton’s classes
at the Tabernacle Bible School, and preaching three
times at the Tabernacle on Sunday. All reports de
clare that he captured the great congregations with
rare manifestations of pulpit power. An orator of
surpassing native eloquence and yet humble and
devout, the Tabernacle congregation soon realized
that they had met a preacher really great in the
power of the present, and the promise of the future.
He swayed his audiences from smiles to tears, fas
cinated them with his easy mastery of the English
tongue and blessed them with the all-essential spir
ituality without which the message of any preacher
is always brought in vain. “The Literature of
Living,” Mr. Ridley’s new book, is having a
splendid sale, and is carrying the loftiest type of
inspiration to every life it touches.
•9 *
A ‘Notable Gift.
Among the many splendid gifts that has come to
Dr. Broughton for the Atlanta Baptist Tabernacle
since the auspicious launching of this great move
ment some weeks ago, none perhaps is more notable
than that of Mr. W. S. Witham, the multi-bank
president and philanthropist who has done so much
for Christian education in Georgia. Being a Meth-
odist, Mr. Witham’s benefactions have naturally
gone largely to schools of his own denomination,
but he has given thousands of dollars elsewhere,
his supreme purpose being to invest money where
it will do the greatest possible good. His gift
of five thousand dollars to the Tabernacle work
in face of the great new Wesley Memorial work
which will naturally and justly call for his gen
erosity, shows the beautiful spirit of liberality
which characterizes Mr. Witham’s practical be
quests. He went over all of Dr. Broughton’s work
very carefully and declared it to be so great and
far-reaching in its Christian and humanitarian up
lift of body, mind and spirit that he counted it a
privilege to make this investment which has, of
course, greatly cheered Dr. Broughton’s heart in
an hour of anxiety, while stimulating others toward
that kind of giving that makes the best of living.
«9 19
The Agricultural Mobement in
Education.
There has not been in Georgia in a long time,
such a general and well sustained movement in any
one line of progress as is that of the establishment
of schools and curricula for scientific agricultural
instruction. It is a worthy source of pride to all
our people that such attention should be paid to
the training of the young men of the state in the
scientific whys and wherefores of practical farming.
When it is considered that the main source of Geor
gia’s wealth is her farming lands and that a large
per cent of her population live by agriculture, it
is rather remarkable that more attention has not here
tofore been paid to this branch of education. It is true
that there were established by the State a number
of years ago colleges that were agricultural in
name, but they did not go beyond the name. There
was no pretense at practical instruction, there was
no provision for a course that would equip for sci
entific farming. It is largely due to the wisdom
and generosity of Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Ogden
that this large advance has been made recently in
agricultural education. They saw and appreciated
the needs of the South along this line, and gave as
sistance both financial and otherwise in bringing to
pass the establishment of such schools as seemed
suitable to the requirements. The best agricultural
schools now in existence are said to be in Canada.
From the methods there employed much has been
utilized and applied in this State. The curricula
of the agricultural colleges being established in each
Congressional District are so arranged as to make
them practical schools for practical farmers. They
will give literary instruction such as is to be ob
tained in the colleges already established; but along
with that will go definite, practical and thorough
agricultural instruction for use in the field and be
tween the plough handles later. There is much at
tention being directed now to the establishment of
some kind of agricultural study in the rural schools.
There is no doubt that in a short time there will
be adopted into the course of the country school
what may be termed primary agricultural instruc
tion, leading up to the higher studies in the agri
cultural colleges. Such an arrangement will bring
to pass a new and a brighter day for farming in
Georgia and for the Georgia farmer himself. The
idea, which has seemed to be generally accepted,
that no education was necessarv for a farmer, and
that the methods in use by the fathers and grand
fathers still remain the proper ones, has passed,
along with other educational and agricultural er
rors, and the farmer of the era now dawning will
come into his own and will be a king by natural,
if not divine right. Farming will be intensive, con
ducted along scientific lines. The time is not far
distant when the big, neglected, overgrown and rag
ged farms of the South will have changed utterly
their appearance. Instead of the old formula of
“forty acres and a mule” to the hand, there will
be a reduction of seventy-five per cent in acreage;
there will be better, closer and more economic farm
ing, and the yield will increase in even a greater per
cent than the acreage decreases. The new methods
and the improved conditions will mean much for
the social life of the farmer and will bring to pass
a better era for the South. Every effort should be
made by our citizens to strengthen and hasten the
work of the agricultural schools.