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Ihe Golden Age
(StLCCESSO* TO RELIGIOUS PORUM)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden tfge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OTPICES: LOWNDES PUILDING. ATLANTA. GA.
Price: $2.00 a 'Pear
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In cases of foreign address fifty cents should be added to cobn
additional postage.
Make all remittances payable to The Golden Age Publishing Company.
WILLIAM D. UPSHfXW, - - - - Editor
A. E. PA MSA UR, - - - Managing Editor
LEH G. RR.OUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
Entered at the Post Office tn Stllanla, Ga.,
as second-class matter.
The Value of Kind Words.
A contemporary, inspired by the tragic suicide
of a prominent actress, driven to end her life by
despondency over the loss of her money through a
bank failure, comments generally upon the question
of why people desire to end their lives as follows:
“What does it all mean, this tinging away of life?
What is the terror that hovers near, one glimpse
of which is sufficient to make even the face of
death more inviting? Is there no help? Must ev
ery one be shadowed by catastrophe and overpow
ered in a moment of lassitude? Where is friend
ship and the consolation of hope? Is the suicide
of Clara Bloodgood merely the surface evidence of
an underworld of agony borne by others? How
many other hearts are breaking? How many oth
er brave souls are tugging at their moorings, half
determined to break away and sail into the fog and
mystery rather than endure longer the cruelty and
heartlessness of the world?
“What a lesson in charity and kind-heartedness
and brotherhood! What a sermon on the need of
the helping hand and the cheering word! The
breaking heart has been known to heal, and the
crushed spirit has been known to lift up and re
joice at the sound of a cheery word or at the touch
of a friendly hand. As a frail soul may sink and
die under the blow of reproach, so it will blossom
and become fragrant in the sunshine of kindli
ness. ‘Kind hearts are more than coronets, and
simple faith than Norman blood.’ It is the kindly,
cheering word that is worth more than gold when
fitly spoken and uttered from the heart. It is the
optimist who does good, scattering happiness with
the prodigality of a spendthrift scattering gold.
God bless the man who smiles and lends a hand!
He is the world’s need. God bless the man whose
lips speak charitably, whose mouth is a spring of
good cheer! He is the best help to those who
are fighting and struggling against the buffets of
the world.”
This is a sermon worthy of all acceptation so
far as the doctrine of charity and kindness goes;
p.nd that goes a long way; but even that is not the
balm and the refuge for the soul that has no anchor
through faith in the simple and abiding goodness
and love of the Power above. That comforts when
worldly wealth and human kindness have all failed.
Without it kind words will not suffice to dispel the
gloom and to guide the faltering feet.
n h
Justice, Tears and Tlercy.
All over our Prohibition States in this sunny
Southland there are going to be court room scenes
like that whi<;h took place the other day in the good
city of Moultrie, Georgia. A dispatch to The Macon
Telegraph tells how Judge J. D. McKenzie guarded
the homes and the youth of that city and section
in a flagrant “blind tiger” case. The offender was
a veteran of the sixties and he himself was more
than three score years.
What a shame! But listen to the story and let
offenders young and old in other communities read
their fate between the lines:
“When Judge McKenzie charged the jury in the
The Golden Age for December 12, 1901
case he stressed the fact that they were not to take
into consideration the standing of the defendant in
his community or their friendship or sympathy for
him. They must be men and return a verdict ac
cording to the law and the evidence. The verdict
of guilty was not long in coming, but when the
judge announced a sentence of twelve months on
the gang and S4OO fine the defendant cried out aloud
for mercy, declaring that he was an old man and
unable to do the work on the chaingang. Many of
the jurors were greatly moved by the old veteran’s
grief and sad predicament and they were moved to
tears. In the shortest time the court house present
ed a scene that was much as if there was a funeral
in progress instead of court. Appeals were made
to Judge McKenzie to remit that portion of the
sentence that required labor in the chaingang and
this he finally consented to do, warning the de
fendant that he would never again let him off. The
incident was so affecting and the jury seemed so
deeply stirred in sympathy that Solicitor Way de
clined to go into the trial of other cases at hand
and the court was adjourned.”
Yes, that scene was pathetic, it was tragic—and
yet it was nothing less than salutary. It made an
impression for the majesty of the law that will not
be forgotten. The sovereign people of Moultrie
arose with their conscience and their might several
years ago and drove saloons from their fair city.
Since then the metropolis of all that section has
gone forward with leaps and bounds, and during
all the years of this new progress Moultrie, in the
words of Dr. J. B. Hawthorne, in the Atlanta cam
paign twenty years ago, has put “not one dirty
shilling within her coffers.” She has won for her
self the fair name of standing for law and order
with clean hands and a community conscience that
honors God and regards man, and such a community
has a right to feel outraged when a man defies the
law and begins to peddle death-dealing liquor to
her young men under cover of dark alleys and the
dark hours of night. A money fine will not stop
it. The chaingang, shocking and horrible as is the
remedy, is the only hope. Gray hairs and tears
partly saved the offender in the Moultrie case, be
cause the Christian judge on the bench had “a
failing that leaned to mercy’s side.”
But a veteran who wore the Gray or the Blue
should not disgrace a soldier’s uniform. Judge Mc-
Kenzie is only a type of the upright judge all over
the South, who will make Prohibition prohibit. May
his tribe increase.
at R
The Terror of Human Judgment.
The art of being just is one of the most difficult
practices of life. History records no age when ab
solute justice w 7 as the practice of its people. There
have been eras when the people aspired to be just
to one another, and yet, in the larger light of sub- •
sequent experience, it has been discovered that that
which, at the time, appeared to be justice, was, in
deed, the rankest sort of injustice. And what is true
of the past is also true of the present, for we have
not as yet approached sufficiently near to the char
acter of Him who should be the Pattern of all men
to be able in our dealings with another to always
be just with another.
Such are the limitations of humanity. It does
not always arise from a malicious spirit, for it is
true, ofttimes, that the rankest sort of injustice
toward one’s fellows is dealt out by one who is
earnestly, seriously, and conscientiously striving
after the spirit of justice. So, it is not always be
cause the heart is not desirous of being just. But
the heart is ofttimes wicked, and, consequently,
even in the best of men, slow to comprehend what
constitutes true, unadulterated, pure justice. It
is also true that the intellect is terribly obscured by
cobwebs of prejudice; antedeluvian tradition, ju
venile superstition, the practices of custom, and
the training of earlier years, until it is next to im
possible for the mind to so analyze the act of anoth
er as to be able to reach a just conclusion concern
ing the act. And the tragedy of it all is that scarce
ly one in ten thousand is wise enough to recog
nize his personal limitations, and act the part of
a wise and just man by withholding judgment for
Him whose duty it is to judge.
We could hardly ask for a better evidence of the
depravity of man than the conceit which causes
the average man to rush into judgment upon the
acts of his fellows. And there are quite a number
in every community who consider that the safety
of the community depends upon the rapidity with
which they can announce their findings. It makes
no difference if the finding strikes directly at the
character of the individual. In fact, if character
is involved it is deemed all the more necessary that
their judgment should be announced. And, alas,
how many times it has been true that such judg
ments, repeatedly announced, have been the means
of casting a blighting shadow upon a life free from
any kind of stain.
But why should we judge at all? The Christ
understood and comprehended the limitations of
humanity, and for that reason He commanded that
we should not judge. Justice does not arise, there
fore, from the passing of judgments upon the acts
or motives of our fellows, but rather in withholding
judgment. The just man is just because he has
sufficient grace and common sense not to express
judgment. In fact, the closer he gets to the
Master in thought and practice, and the better he
understands- the deceitfulness of his own heart, and
the woeful obscurity of his own mind, the slower
he will be in even reaching a conclusion concerning
the acts or motives of others, much less expressing
a conclusion. The just man is the silent man —not
necessarily the one who is dead, but the one who
has learned from personal experience something of
his personal limitations, this knowledge bringing
him a thousand humiliations, and, consequently,
drawing him into a closer, more charitable, and sym
pathetic relationship with his fellows. But some
men have to act a fool a good many times before
they learn this lesson.
And then our judgments of the motives and acts
of others is always colored by how we have lived,
and what we are. We see not others so much as we
see ourselves, if we but had the godd sense to un
derstand it. This is the lesson Jesus taught when
he said: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” The
judgments which men pass upon the acts and mo
tives of others are not manifestations of wisdom
or grace, but rather reflections of what is contained
in their own hearts. We say of others what we are
ourselves. We say that so-and-so is true of the
acts of men, not because it is actually true of them,
but because it would be true of us were we to do
the same things, We judge a man’s motive in the
performance of certain acts by what our motive
would be under similar or related
But this does not prove that the man i£ controlled
by such a motive—it only proves what our motive
would be under like circumstances. So that, in
speaking of the motives and acts of men —that is,
in passing judgment upon their motives and acts —
we are not so much passing judgment upon them as
we are upon ourselves. We are reflecting the condi
tion of our own hearts, and advertising to the world
what we are, or what we would be under certain
circumstances.
Let us, therefore, abstain from passing upon the
acts and motives of others. No one is capable of
being perfectly just except Him whom God has ap
poinA'd to the office of Judge. Let us not usurp
His office.
* H
A contemporary has started a discussion in its
correspondence column on the somewhat familiar
problem of how to prevent baldness. The most
attractive remedy so far advanced is as follows:
Rub the scalp vigorously with common table salt
for ten nights, just before retiring. On the elev
enth night, bring a pail of clear well water near
the poll; the hair will come out promptly to get
a drink. Like all other discussions, this one has
inevitably led to some feeling. A lady was moved
to write that “if men would think a little more
and exercise their brains they wouldn’t need any
stuff to put on jtheir heads to prevent baldness.”
Whereupon a male being comes forward with this:
The fact of the matter is, baldness demonstrates
that a man works his brains a great deal. Women
haven t whiskers. ’ ’ Now isn’t he a mean old thing
to talk that way?