Newspaper Page Text
Mountain Top Days at Northfield
By George T. B. Dabis
HE second week of the Northfield Chris
tian Workers’ Conference is proving
even more helpful than the first. The
conference is becoming a mountain top
of vision to hundreds, and large num
bers of lives are being transformed by
receiving a power that they have never
known before.
No more soul stirring and uplifting
T
addresses are being’ given at the conference this
year than those of Rev. J. Stuart Holden, of
London. Mr. Holden is secretary of the Keswick
Movement in England, ■which stands fora higher type
of Christian experience; and his messages at North
field are direct and simple, yet Scriptural and full
of power. He speaks almost daily at the conference
during the week, and on Sundays is delivering a
series of sermons at St. Bartholomew’s church,
New York, the leading Episcopal church of the
metropolis.
One morning Mr. Holden spoke upon the 91st
Psalm, especially upon the 13th verse: “Thou
shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion
and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
He said in part:
“God does not remove our temptations. He is
not going to take the lion out of your path. He is
not going to take the adder out of your path. He
will not make it impossible for you to give birth to
some unholy dragon.
“But, mark you this, fellowship with Him is a
strengthening of moral fibre unto resistance and
unto victory. You remember, doubtless, a very
interesting occurrence in the city of Rome, in the
sixteenth century, when they were seeking to up
raise and put into position the great obelisk which is
in front of St. Peter’s. It is said to weigh one
million pounds, and they had a great scaffolding
erected. Ropes were tied to the obelisk and thous
ands of men and horses were attached to these
ropes trying to pull it into position. They raised
it up to a certain angle, and then not another inch
would it go. The ropes seemed to be in danger of
immediate snapping, with destruction of the obelisk
and of life. Complete silence had been enjoined
by order of the Pope and his officers on the whole
crowd, but one man, who was an old sailor, saw
the danger and saw the calamity which was to
come upon them. In defiance of the order for silence
he cried out, ‘Drench the ropes with water.’ They
took him at his word and drenched the ropes, and
the damp ropes contracted as the dry ones could
not, and the obelisk was upraised. And I have
often thought that that is just what God does.
Fellowship with Him is just a drenching of all the
moral fibre which a man has, to resist temptation,
to overcome evil and to attain unto the victory
which is the dominant note of Christ s Gospel.
Thou shalt tread. Not, I shall tread for thee.
Thou, theyself. You must have personal contact
with the enemy. The victory must be wrought
throug’h you. Thine own hands, thine own feet,
the whole of thy life surrendered to thy Lord and
empowered unto this experience of victory.
“Stand, then, having your feet shod, that you
may tread upon the dragon, the adder. Stand,
taking the sword of the Spirit, that you may fight
against the lion and the dragon, and having drawn
the sword, fling away the scabbard because you
will never need it again. From this war there is
no discharge. In this war there need be no defeat
for the man who in simple, humble faith unites
himself to the all-conquering, all-powerful Christ.
May it be your experience and mine, that hence
forth we tread upon the way, not trodden upon In
all those forces which have so often brought us into
bondage, but stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free.
Mr. Alexander continually intersperses the songs
with brief talks on soul winning and other subjects.
One morning Dr. A. T. Pierson, who was sitting
on the platform, was called upon to explain the
Atonement so that anyone in the audience could
grasp its significance. Dr. Pierson said that he
The Golden Age for August 20, 1908.
could best explain the subject by relating the most
remarkable illustration of its meaning that he had
ever heard, and he said he wanted every minister
and Christian worker in the audience to use it. It
was as follows:
“Prof. Olcott, whose name is familiar in this
country, was a teacher of boys, and had the boys
in his school make rules for the conduct of the
school and attach the penalties for violation of the
rules, so that when a boy was punished, he was
brought before the school and the rule was read
and the penalty inflicted by the boys themselves.
One little fellow 7 , rather undersized, had been guilty
of two violations of the rules of the school, and the
rule was that the second offence of that kind
should be punished by a public flogging, which was
rarely resorted to in Prof. Olcott’s school. So
the young lad was called up, and the rule was read
to him, and the penalty which the boys had them
selves affixed to the rules. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘my
dear little fello-w, it becomes necessary for me to
chastise you before the boys for the violation of
this rule; but my heart goes out to you and I can
not really bear to inflict this punishment upon you.
I am going to have you punish me instead.’ To
the astonishment of the boys, and especially of the
offender, he took the rod and put it into the hands
of the culprit, and said: ‘Now, lay that rod upon
my back.’ Well, the boy of course touched him
very lightly. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that won ’t do. You
must punish me just as hard as you think you ought
to be punished.' And he persisted until that boy
laid a sufficient number of stripes upon him, with
a sufficient force, to vindicate the law of the school
and punish the offence. Meanwhile, the boy was in
a paroxysm of grief, crying, sobbing and almost
fainting, under the thought that he was punishing
an innocent teacher for his offence. Prof. Olcott
said that, from that time to the end of his school
life, that boy was never known to violate another
rule of the school.
“I think that is the most effective illustration
I have ever heard of Christ taking upon Himself
our penalties, and submitting His back to flu 1
scourge, that by His stripes we might be healed,
and that nothing so melts the soul of the sinner
and gives him such a conception of his own sin
and the grace of God, as when he comes to realize
the fact that Jesus Christ, bore his sins in His own
body, on the tree.”
Few, if any, of the sneakers at the conference
this year have more deeply stirred the hearts of the
people than Dr. Leu G. Broughton, of Atlanta,
Ga. Dr. Broughton could be present only at the
first part of the conference, as he is sailing for
England to occupy Dr. G. Campbel] Morgan s
pulpit at Westminster Chapel during the months
of September and October. Dr. Broughton’s last
message to the conference was one which will long
be remembered by those who were privileged to
hear it. It was on how to get power, and the people
were thrilled and deeply moved by his message.
Many were in tears during its delivery and at its
conclusion scores crowded around Dr. Broughton
to thank him for the blessing they had received. He
said in part:
“What I mean by power is what Samson had
before he put his head in the lap of Delilah, ami
what he lost when he did it. I mean the power of
the supernatural God coming upon a man, enabling
him to do that which otherwise he could not do.
That is what I mean by power; and I thank God
that that power is possible for a man today. I do
not believe that God has any favorites among us.
If He has favorites, His favorites are made up of
those who are perfectly willing to let Him do with
them as He sees fit; and the man who goes to God,
surrendering Himself absolutely and without reserve
to Him, is the man who is clothed with the power
of the supernatural. And, look out! Something
is going to happen in that man’s life that will make
him a standing interrogation point to the men that
he comes in contact with thereafter. And that is
what the Church wants,”
Strong ’s Leap Into Polver Is Meteoric.
Note —The following superb tribute to Sterling
P. Strong, leader of the victorious Prohibition Dem
ocrats in Texas, published in The San Antonio Light,
is all the more striking as a personal tribute be
cause The Light is a Republican Anti-Prohibition
paper —but withal a paper very fair to all men and
parties.—Editor.
In th(> whirligig of politics, no more remarkable
development may be found than the sudden eleva
tion of Sterling P. Strong, a country banker of
Bowie, Montague county, from comparative obscuri
ty to the rulership of the great democratic party of
Texas.
This state convention will take orders from a
man who, until a few months ago, could give or
ders to no one except the clerks in his bank.
And never has there lived a man upon whom
sudden honor and power sat as becomingly. It has
not swelled this man Strong’s head; it has not made
him overbearing or domineering or self-assertive.
Other political bosses might profit by following his
example.
He is as courtly., as gracious, as considerate, as
self-effacing as a man in his position could be. He
does not seek to “run it over” those who are asso
ciated with him in the leadership of the movement
which may turn the tide of political fortunes in
Texas.
Quiet, dignified, calm and courteous, Strong is
wielding the sceptre of sudden power with the grace
of one to the manner born.
He looks like a college professor, or a preacher.
Ilis spectacles give his smooth, unwrinkled face an
air of studious dignity that is very attractive. His
Sterling P. Strong.
brow is high and dome-like. Ilis mouth has a win
ning smile that is ever ready to ripple in unison
with a pair of eyes that can twinkle as genially as
the sunbeams on the dew of a May morning. His
figure is commanding, tall and well-proportioned
and he dresses in quiet but admirable taste.
With all his courtliness and quiet dignity, Strong
has been in politics all his mature life. lor many
years he served his county as clerk and attained to
the presidency of the County Clerks' Association
of Texas. Four years ago he was a candidate tor
state treasurer, but was defeated. After that race
he engaged in the banking’ business at Bowie, his
home town, and he has made it a success.
A few months ago he came to the front as the
chairman of the democratic prohibition submission
committee and from that time he has been in the
center of the stage. It was he who engineered the
circulation of the petitions which were presented to
the state committee asking for the submission of
prohibition in the primary. He led the fight in the
campaign for submission; and now he is here lead
ing the submission forces in the convention.
And as the submissionists control the convention
by a big majority, dominating it, naming its officers
and committees, directing its proceedings, and as
Sterling P. Strong is their leader, is it exaggeration
to say that, for the moment, at least, he is the boss
of the democracy of Texas?
9
