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THE CURSE OF PROSPERITY
S
fliction, disaster and oppression.
On the other hand, the things that are counted
as blessings are often curses, working evil and not
good. Prosperity is regarded as a blessing, and it
does, indeed, carry with it the possibility of great
good in providing means and opportunities for use
fulness and development, both to the individual
and to the nation. But it also carries with it dan
gers and evils that are far more grievous than any
that attend adversity. It takes a stronger charac
ter to bear prosperity than it does to endure ad
versity. There are many who can meet disasters
bravely, and view them with philosophic calm,
emerging from them with strongel muscles and
stouter hearts, but there are few who can resist
the temptations of prosperity, withstand the selfish
and prodigal tendencies of a condition of plenty,
and preserve an humble and dependent spirit in the
midst of abundance. It has ever been true that
times of great prosperity were also times of apos
tasy —moral lapses. In all the history of ancient
Israel it may be seen that in times of plenty there
was a falling away from religion, and a drift to
ward worldliness and idolatry. And the annals of
the nations that have arisen since the days of Is
rael show a like tendency. Wealth and luxury,
ease and affluence, lead to indulgence, vice and cor
ruption, which destroy the strength and endurance
of manhood, and cause the decay of a nation.
Mighty nations have flourished in the past, of which
there remains only a memory today, and that dis
honored. The causes of their decay have nearly
always been luxury, and its attendant corruptions.
“The Spur of Poverty.’’
Poverty has done far more for the world than
wealth. The history of the race is the story of a
few great lives, and these comparatively few great
lives have nearly all come up from the ranks of
the poor. The necessity to toil develops the
strength and resources of manhood and intellect,
and makes them positive forces in the world. Not
many men of inherited wealth have ever done any
thing worth while. They have had no spur to en
deavor, and no occasion to learn the lesson of sac
rifice, which is the price of all great service. Nec
essity is not only “the mother of invention,” but
of nearly all great endeavor and achievement. Not
a few of the greatest literary productions of the
world have been brought forth by want. Like
Samuel Johnson, the literary dictator of his age,
many men of genius have wrought best under the
spur of poverty. Johnson’s immortal Rasselas was
written to raise money to pay his mother’s funer
al expenses. And he wrought diligently until the
English government gave him a pension in recog
nition of his valuable productions, after which his
pen was less active. The genius of Sir Walter
Scott scarcely manifested itself until financial re
verses drove him to toil.
America is suffering more today from prosperity
than it has ever suffered from adversity. The worst
panics the country has ever experienced did not
raise such problems nor bring such perils as we
face in the great abundance and rapid increase of
wealth of the present time. There is plenty every
where, and phenomenal growth of riches in every
section, and greed and graft have followed gain.
From every state the cry of corruption is heard,
and men in high places in public and private life
are charged with complicity in fraud and theft.
The government and the commerce of the country
are under suspicion, and a designing spirit is rife
in the land. The possession of money begets the
love of it, and the love of it, like the mythical
power of Circe, transforms men into beasts. It is
EEMING calamities are ofttimes bless
ings in disguise. Adversity has been a
potential factor in working out the best
character and highest good in human
civilization. Indeed, it is through hard
ship and privation that men and na
tions come to their greatest strength.
Virtue is only negative until it has been
tried by fire —the fire of temptation, as-
fiy DR. A. J. MONCRIEF, President of Cox College.
The Golden Age for May 9, 1907.
able to transmute strength into weakness, heroism
into cowardice and honor into vice.
Idleness and Luxury.
Idleness and luxury are the seeds of crime and
corruption, and the harvest from their sowing is
one of woe. The strength of a nation and the pur
ity of society are promoted by toil and frugality.
The backbone of any country is its working class,
and the homes where simple contentment dwells are
the corner stones of the state and the church. The
larger the working class, and the more of these
humble homes the stronger and happier is the na
tion.
The greatest problem of the state and the church
today is the problem of accumulated wealth. These
amassed millions are blighting the civil, and blast
ing the religious, life of America today. I shall not
undertake to offer any solution of the problem, for
no man nor number of men will ever be able to
solve it. It is a problem for Providence, and we
need to pray for deliverance. The greatest bless
ing that could befall our country today would be
a regenerating baptism of the Divine Spirit that
would turn these reservoirs of wealth into streams
and send them flowing to the uttermost parts of the
earth, to succor the perishing millions, and strength
en the languishing institutions of God. Next to
this the best blessing that could come would be
some calamity that would sweep away the vast accu
mulations of wealth that are a standing menace to
the moral manhood of the land, and a source of
temptation, corruption and decay, and turn the peo
ple to honest industry and simple living. God send
us one of these blessings lest we go the way of the
splendid civilizations of the past, that rotted inter
nally and crumbled upon their foundations.
R *
Peace Unib er sal.
(Note —The Golden Age is glad to publish first
in the South this stirring song written by Mrs. Ida
Richards Compton, a brilliant Georgia woman, who
is now private secretary to Dr. Robert Stuart Mac-
Arthur, for nearly forty years the beloved pastor
of Calvary Baptist Church, New York. “Peace
Universal” was sung with enthusiasm at the great
International Peace Conference recently held in
New York, and created such a profound impres
sion that it will doubtless find a permanent place
in the hymnology of America.)
[Tune —America.}
i, In conquest not of sword,
y* But in His mighty Word
God’s pow’r doth dwell;
Far and wide send with speed,
Pray ev’ry land to heed,
And God, as King indeed,
All wars shall quell.
Where ’er the cross is raised
''j May God’s dear name be praised
< i In loyalty;
And may it ev’rywhere
Faith hope and love declare,
■ 1 For Christ the crown shall wear
In Majesty.
Spirit of Peace, we long
For a united song
To mount on high;
“Aloha,” o’er the sea;
To join, “God with you be,”
And blend with shouts to Thee
“Banzai!” “Banzai!”
Let’s lift our faith above,
Unfurl the flag of love
In ev’ry clime;
“Star of the East” our guide,
Tn God may we abide,
Righting wrong side by side
In peace divine.
Among the Workers.
An interesting series of meetings is going on at
Calhoun in the Methodist church.
The Congregational Methodist Bible School, es
tablished by Dr. Hunt in Atlanta about a year ago,
is doing a fine work.
Rev. T. T. Martin, one of our best evangelists,
has held one of the best meetings of the season at
Capitol Avenue Baptist Church, Atlanta.
Birmingham is looking forward with eagerness
and careful preparation to the coming of the Gen
eral Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church
on May 10. Few bodies of greater ability and
greater piety ever assemble than this one.
The Baptist church at Sylvester, Ga., was struck
by lightning just after the close of the Sunday
night service on April 28. Mrs. J. R. Miller, stand
ing on the front steps, was seriously shocked. The
other members of the congregation had passed be
yond danger.
One of the hopeful institutions that probably re
ceived its inspiration from the success of the Ta
bernacle Bible Conference is the Blue Mountain
Conference, which meets at Blue Mountain, Miss.,
June 25 to July 4. A magnificent array of the
finest talent is booked for the season.
President J. W. Gaines comes from a period of
years that have been spent in the splendid leader
ship of the Welsh Neck High School at Hartsville,
S. C., to the presidency of Cox College at College
Park, Ga., made vacant by the resignation of Rev.
A. J. Moncrief. Greetings to President Gaines.
Among the most strikingly promising “new
things” that has come to light is the special Sun
day school class for traveling men now beginning
under the leadership of Mr. B. S. Drake at the
First Baptist Church of this city. It is a capital
idea. There ought to be such classes in every city
and town in America, where traveling men spend
their Sundays.
Dr. H. M. Hammil, that Ajax of the Methodist
Sunday school work, says: “The sissy sermons are
going out of style,” which means that he, from his
vantage ground, sees that manly men, and true
women, and brave boys, and wide-awake girls are
demanding the clear-cut, upright, outright, down
right truth of the Gospel as God gave it in the Bi
ble and has preserved it in Providence.
The news comes that the Presbyterians of Missis
sippi have voted against consolidating with the
Presbyterians of the North. The indications are
that Southern Presbyterians will not consolidate.
Mere consolidation for the sake of sentiment or
ambition, or pride of appearance, can do no good.
The object of ecclesiastical organization is to do the
Lord’s work and glorify him. No other motive
should control such questions.
The Congregational Methodists from all the coun
try lying between and including Texas and Pennsyl
vania will meet in convention in Monroe county,
Georgia, on May 8. There will go to that meeting
a. delegation of about fifty people from Atlanta,
headed by Dr. Rolf Hunt. The convention will be
held at Mt. Zion Church in Monroe county, the place
where Congregational Methodism was born on the
eighth day of May, 1852.
The Messenger, of Wilson, N. C., has been
purchased by Brother A. B. Carroll, who comes
from a mercantile life, but full of spirit-power and
pluck. The Messenger starts out well. Among the
good things it brings us is the account of a remark
ably good revival meetin gled by Brother John T.
Pullen, who is a lay preacher, but a messenger from
on high to lost men and women As he speaks they
listen, hear, believe. The Holy Spirit has done good
things for Wilson, N. C.