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8
7he Golden Age
(SUCCZ.SJO* TO BJLLIGIOUS lOKUJT)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OTIICPS: LOWNDES BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a Fear
Ministers $1.50 per Year.
In cases of foreign address fifty cents should be added to cober
additional postage,
flake all remittances payable to The Golden Age Publishing Company.
WILLIAM D. UPSHXW, - Editor
A. E. PA MS A UP, - - - Managing Editor
LEK G. ROUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
Entered at the Post Office tn Atlanta, Ga„
as second-class matter.
Gotham Frightened.
The daily papers do tell us that New York is
getting nervous. The banishment of saloons from
Alabama, following so soon in Georgia’s shining
path, and the certain victory for Prohibition pend
ing in several other Southern States —together with
Oklahoma’s constitutional dethronement of the li
quor traffic —have made even New York City sit up
and rub her blood-shot eyes. The Hotelkeepers’
Association at its last meeting “took notice” of
this blessed “emotional insanity” and distinctly
gave out to the world that they do not want any
thing like it to be coming their way. They pro
pose to inaugurate a campaign to check the threat
ened danger. That dark part of the hotel business
which hugs the saloon to its bosom is asking for a
“toddy” to steady its nerves. Very well. But we
would like to remind our frightened inn-keepers in
Gotham who are sponsors for the endangered sa
loon that there is no known way to check “emotion
al insanity” and nerves that have to be “steadied”
by a “toddy” soon become unsteady again. Let
them inaugurate and prosecute their campaign of
resistance! The more they agitate, the more they
do foundation work for Prohibition. The more the
cause of the saloon is aired the surer and swifter
will be its ultimate overthrow.
With New York acknowledging her fright, with
Chicago fighting for Sunday closing and New Or
leans trying to make her saloons respectable enough
to live, the signs of the times “look good” to us.
We work on with busy hands and look on with
thankful, tranquil heart.
•t H
An Fditor’s Farete ell.
The honest, courageous country Editor is the bul
wark of the nation’s intelligence; and it must be
like severing heart strings for an editor like this
to give over into the hands of another a paper which
he founded nearly thirty years ago. When life was
young and hope was high, Ben F. Perry, reared in
the beautiful little citv of Marietta, went to his
neighboring town of Canton, Ga., twenty miles away,
to begin life’s battle alone. A beardless youth,
without money and with only such friends as his
sterling worth might win from day to day, he
launched The Cherokee Advance, and through all
these years he has labored nobly for the upbuild
ing of Canton and Cherokee county, guarding his
columns with purity of eye and consecration of pur
pose and pouring the ardor —yet the equipoise—of
his stainless Christian manhood into the homes
and lives of all that mountain section.
And now he says goodbye. The last issue of The
Advance contains his valedictory, he having sold
the paper to Elam Christian, Jr., an experienced
and promising young newspaper man from Marietta,
the home town of Ben F. Perry’s boyhood.
But all this is incidental. Reference is made in
these columns to this local incident in one of the
mountain counties of Georgia, not for the news in
terest in it (for that is not our province) but be
cause of the unselfish lesson behind the valedictory—
jt is the doing of a modest philanthropist,
The Golden Age for December 19, 1907.
The writer happens to know that Ben F. Perry
has given up a lucrative position in the Bank of
Canton and sold out the paper that he loves, he
says, “like the child of his loins,” in order to de
vote himself wholly to the work of building up the
rural schools of Cherokee county. His office of
school commissioner lacks much of paying him what
he has been offered in positions high and lucrative —
some from the coffers of the state —but he deliber
ately and gladly turns from them all that he may
work through life’s busy, beautiful evening, if God
wills, in trying to “make two grass blades grow
where one was growing before, ’ ’ and making roses of
beauty and fragrance to bloom where the tangled
riot of thorns and thistles reigned.
Mr. Perry says in his valedictory: “I feel to
ward the people of Cherokee as Ruth expressed her
self to Naomi: ‘Thy people shall be my people and
thy God my God.’ ”
Verily, all of earth’s heroes are not sung in song
and story.
Thank God for the unselfish ideal that is reign
ing more and more in the lives of men!
H I?
Childhood and Christmas.
Much has been said and written with reference
to the foolish expenditure made at this season in
giving presents to friends and relatives. And there
is great reason for comment of this nature because
the custom of Christmas giving has become a very
burdensome one and in some ways a very senseless
one. People make presents to their friends which
they know and their friends know they do not want,
and receive just the same kind of presents in re
turn. It is right and proper that some evidence
should be given of the spirit of good will and fel
lowship that should normally occupy every human
heart at this season, but there should be a more sen
sible method found of expressing it. The best pur
pose for which money can be spent at this season,
after the poor and needy have been provided for,
is in giving to children. In this connection we are
moved to give the following editorial on this subject
from a contemporary. We believe that this is the
true spirit in which to regard the making of Christ
mas for the children:
“If there is any hard and crusted old codger who
intends to cut down expenses this year by depriving
children of the joys of Christmas, let him think
twice! It is a dangerous thing to do. If the com
munity should hear of it, there is no telling what
might happen. It may be true that there is a finan
cial stringency all over the world. It may be true
that financiers everywhere are growing bald in fig
uring how to make a pygmy’s currency do a giant’s
business. Possibly it is true that there is a depres
sion here and there in spots in this mighty country.
But it is not true, and never will be true, that it
is necessary to sacrifice Christmas pleasures merely
because a rich nation does not know enough to pro
vide money for its needs.
“In the deliberate opinion of mankind, the most
monstrous fiend is he who robs a child of happiness.
There is something so diabolical in such a crime that
it stands beyond the pale of ordinary atrocity. When
one thinks of the light of a child’s eyes driven out
by the disappointment that is keener than sorrow,
when one sees the smile vanish and the tears flow*,
when one returns to childhood and shares in the
unutterable woe of those who are forgotten at
Christmas time, there is a surge of passionate anger
against the man who could thus blot the sun out of
childhood’s sky.
“If childish glee were so costly that it could be
purchased only by the bankruptcy of the family for
tune, there might be some excuse for the crime of
which we speak. But this is not so. It is easy, very
easy, indeed, to make happiness grow. The tend
ency of lush prosperity is to run to ridiculous excess
in the luxury of children’s gifts. There is no sense
in such expenditures. Children are happier with
simpler things. The present stringency will do good
by lopping off extravagance. Let the grown-up run
his mind back to his own childhood and estimate
the joy hidden in gifts that may be had for the price
of a poor cigar. Then let him invest in happiness
for his children, and for other children who may be
in danger of being forgotten.
“If there is any man at this season who is alone,
with unhappy memories behind him and a gloomy
outlook ahead, let him go out and buy some of the
inexpensive but marvelously ingenious gifts for
children; let him hoard them until Christmas Eve;
let him seek out children who have no unhappy mem
ories, but whose future may seem blacker than his
own, and let him light up the whole sky, from hori
zon to zenith, with glorious, flashing, radiant, rosy
happiness for all concerned, by bringing down a
spark of divine love and kindling childhood’s heart!
Then let him go home, and see whether the future
is as. black as his fancy had painted it. Black?
Why, his whole pathway will be paved with jasper
and gold, and he will fall asleep to the tinkle of
child’s laughter, sounding softly, as through a drip
ping of tears!”
It H
The Vote er That D rates.
Nothing draws the people —and keeps on drawing
them —like the right kind of preaching of the “old
fashioned gospel.” The novice may rise and the
meteor may flash for a time, but the pulpit that
prates of “new theology” and has nothing more
abiding than the magnetic personality of the speak
er will soon become only the sign of emptiness and
the emptiness of only a sign.
Paul, Chrysostom, Bunyan, Whitefield, Wesley,
Edwards, Spurgeon, Moody, Dixon, Chapman, Tor
rey —these have preached the definite gospel: You
are a sinner, Christ is the only Savior. If you ac
cept Him you are saved and if you reject Him you
are forever lost!
That is the only kind of preaching that has ever
fed the hungry multitude and lifted men out of the
ditch up to God. The Western Recorder tells of
Dr. J. H. Chandler’s comment on Dr. R. A. Tor
rey’s recent meetings in Chicago:
“Rev. J. H. Chandler, in the Congregationalist,
reports one of Dr. R. A. Torrey’s noon meetings
in a theater in the business part of Chicago.
“The house was packed with solid tiers of men,
thousands of them, in the busiest part of the day—
business men almost to a man, young and.old, rich
merchants and their clerks, famous lawyers and
those beginning their practice, etc., etc.
“The sermon was strongly Calvinistic, ‘cold log
ic and dogmatic statement.’ He had preached be
fore on the Resurrection, this sermon was on various
deductions drawn from it. For every statement he
gave Bible proof.
“He said severe and cutting things about agnos
tics, Unitarians and the professors in the Chicago
University. ‘The preaching was not at all in what
is called the spirit of the age; but in that congrega
tion of Chicago business men visible signs of ap
proval were freely given, not only when he declared
his personal convictions, but when he fired hot shot
at his theological opponents.
“ ‘Whether he was altogether right or not, he
made most of his auditors believe that his conclu
sions were worth fighting for. The men of the
cloister would not approve of his sermon, but they
were not present.’ But business men were there
in their thousands, and they did approve. They
crowded that theater day after day to hear Torrey’s
‘cold logic in defense of the authority and inspira
tion of the Bible.’
Dr. Chandler adds: ‘Not only do the rank and
file of plain people believe in him and hear him
gladly, but many men of large means are glad to
pay the bills of an expensive religious enterprise,
even in these times when lhe city is so far without
money that the prosperous man has to importune
the banks for cash for lunches and street-car fare.’
And this in Chicago! Verily we have great
1 eason to thank God and take courage.”
Verily this is cause for thanksgiving. Man hun
gers for the gospel—and .the gospel is indeed “good
news” to hungering, thirsting man.
* It
A movement has been inaugurated to tax all
wheels in Chicago. This will be a heavy expense on
some of the Professors of the University of Chicago,