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OK. NULLIN'S POEN ON SENIN AHN JUVILEE
Ky E. y. M.
In the quiet of the altar
At the solemn hour of prayer,
When the soul throbbed deep with yearning
For the Consummation fair,
Dreamed of by the ancient prophets,
Prayed for by the martyred saints,
Longed for by the deep rapt mystics.
The sweet burden of their plants.
Came a vision which had borrowed
From the city of the skies,
Sapphire splendor, golden glory,
Dazzling to our human eyes;
Came to praying hearts which hungered
For the righteousness divine,
Outline clear of image radiant,
Form and fashion all benign.
Saw they in the lengthening vista
Os the silent footed years,
Silvered by hope’s brooding sunlight,
Nourished by love’s clinging fears,
A school of prophets rich in power
Drawn from Christ, 'the risen Son,
Dowered with a quenchless pathos
For a hopeless world undone.
As these saints gazed down the ages,
Clear they heard the Gospel call.
Sounded out by throngs of heralds,
As from silver trumpets fall;
Saw they then a temple rising
Marked by matchless grace and skill,
Saw they noiseless trowels flashing
In the sunlight of God’s will.
Heard they pagan converts shouting,
Saw they heathen shrines fall down,-
• Saw' the age-long shadows lifting,
And each God without a crown;
Saw they sin’s dire sceptre broken,
Death’s dread power at last undone;
Saw Christ’s radiant feet ascending,
Slowlv mounting to His throne.
THE DICKIE VS. ROSE DEBATE.
The Milwaukee debate 'which was told of recently
in The Golden Age has awakened the echoes. The
influence of that debate will go on to limits indefi
nite. The Baptist Commonwealth furnishes this:
A debate of national importance has been sched
uled. The subject is the liveliest subject of today- —
that prohibition is advantageous to the moral and
commercial interests of the country. Mayor Rose,
of the wide-open city of Milwaukee, had the nega
tive and the Honorable Samuel DicKey, president of
Albion College, had the affirmative. The first of
three debates was held on March 26th. It was ex
pected from the reputation and intellectual attain
ments of both participants that something of in
terest to the country would result. Mayor Rose
was disgusting, his contention would be contemptu
ous if it were not farcical. It was au attempt to
justify the liquor traffic on Biblical grounds, quot
ing Scripture ad nauseam to prove (?) that prohi
bition is contrary to the teachings of Christ and
to the spirit of Christianity. The North American
incisively says:
1i We may have scant patience with the well
meaning extremists who try to twist and distort
plainly recorded facts of history into conformance
with what they wish to believe —that neither in the
past nor the present have good men used and ap
proved intoxicants.
“But while we think they discredit their judg
ment and their scholarship by such needless and
•wasteful contentions, honest men do not feel to
ward them anything resembling the contempt they
/have for those who would saddle the twentieth
century saloon upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ
because of the marriage feast of Cana. What we
have said before let us now repeat- as fit comment
for this Milwaukee debate.
The Golden Age for May 20, 1909.
Came an era of disaster,
Love’s triumphant paean failed.
When a tempest, by death conjured,
Fateful leaden anguish hailed;
Passed the image, waned the vision,
swift the fair outline,
Penciled by the shining fingers
Os a faith which seemed divine.
In the ruin, in the heartbreak,
Os a charred and smoking South,
In the torture and the thirsting,
Os a pitiless long drouth,
Stood four yeoman, stood four heroes,
With one dauntless mind and will.
Whose faitlh heard above the doubt storm
Kingly lips say “Peace, be still.”
Patient toiled they, silent suffered,
Valiantly they hoped and fought,
Till a magic transformation
From a gray ash-heap was wrought.;
Through the scope of that great vision
Which to conquering faith unrolled,
Upward rose the shattered fabric
While the skeptic bells were tolled.
Flew the javelins, sped the arrows
Os a strangely purblind hate,
Slowly spun the glowing fingers
At their mystic web elate;
Still the feathered arrows hurtled
Towards the weavers at the loom,
Hurtled from the twanging bowstrings
Twisted from the strands of doom.
But the spinners are the winners
In a universe of love,
The men who build shall find fulfilled
This law ordained above,
That stars and tides and all besides,
Head winds and stormy seas,
“Whether the beverages of the marriage feast
right or wrong for a pastoral people to make and
drink pure wine from their vineyards has abso
lutely no connection with present-day drunkenness,
vice, crime, poverty and waste of health, money and
productive energy.
“Whether the beverages of the marriage feast
at Cana were fermented or unfermented may furn
ish pastime for argumentative scholars. It is
wholly unimportant compared with the need for
local self-government in every American community;
the legalizing of the right of every considerable
division of citizens to say whether in their home
it is best for the greatest number to permit or pre
vent the sale of liquor.
“Would any of these glib quoters of the drun
kenness of Noalh undertake to convince us that
Christ was a poisoner and transformed water into
a blend of fusel oil. prune juice, brown sugar and
fiery neutral spirits, softened and sweetened into a
palatable blend that burns out men’s minds and
health, defiles all national laws and breeds murder?
“Does any dare declare that the example of
Christ sanctions degradation, impoverishment, the
debauchery of womanhood, the alliance with every
form of civic crime?
“We think we speak for all Americans, non-be
lievers in aught supernatural, honest agnostics, He
brews, Catholics and Protestants, in saying that all
share disgust with hypocrisy and false pretense.
And, therefore, we think that if the liquor men are
possessed of an atom of foresight a stop will be
put to such exhibitions as that at Milwaukee, they
will close the Bible and cease their insane attempts
to sanctify the American saloon.’’
Let us remember that these words are taken from
one of pur dailies. When the saloon is taken out
Shall speed the plan and toil of man
When God the task decrees.
Came the four to end of labors.
Hastened to be silent neighbors,
Nobly waned the prophet splendour,'
Tranquil closed the dying eyes,
Softel lapsed the spent endeavor
As they saw new worlds arise,
Stilled at length the weary heart-throb,
Rusted lies the potent pen,
Mute the ringing voice in class-room
Os these panting, hoping men;
Voiceless, pulseless, unreplying.
’Neath the green sod calmly lying.
To our hands their task is given,
We are heirs to their estate;
Vast rolling spiritual acres
Devised by heaven’s potentate.
Speed we to the fruitful furrows,
Ply the thrifty pruning knife;
We shall witness teeming harvests
Garnered to eternal life.
May our hands sing at the labor,
Their life task hath left undone.
May their tears find new fruition
Rainbowed by our clearer sun;
May these fifty years of travil
Prophecy and promise be
That we now shall catch the spirit
Os their eternal jubilee.
Stand we on this Alpine summit
Os our fifty years complete;
See we golden harvests waving,
Hear we angels reapers greet,
See the white-robed myriads thronging,
Hear the Savior’s welcome sweet,
As crowns He.sets on reapers’ brows,
And reapers cast them at His feet.
of politics and made an economic problem we shall
see its doom.
Seaborn Wright at the close of a ringing review
of the wet and dry struggle as it appears in the
daily press and having identified the saloon people
as the systematic law-breakers, says:
“I am as certain as 1 live that the one issue fast
approaching, not in one city or State, but in every
city and State, is the enforcement of all law against
a dangerous, growing criminal element, who would
nulify our laws.” J. L. D. H.
* *
The Nation 9 Drink Bill.
The Now York Tribune says: “The drink bill of
the United States is $1,410,236,702. All the corn,
wheat, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat and potatoes
put together will not pay for it. The liquor traffic
costs more each year than out whole civil service,
our army, navy and Congress, the river, harbor and
pension bills, all we pay for local government, all
national, State and county debts and all the schools
in the country. In fact, this government pays more
for liquors than for every function of every kind
of government.”
This is an amount about half again as much as
our national debt at present. It is about equal to
the amount invested in our present American navy.
It is about as much as is expended in this country
every year for food, for clothing, for education, for
Home and Foreign missions, all combined. This
amount may sound large, but, as a matter of fact,
the estimate of the Tribune is quite a conservative
one. The latest estimate puts the amount expended
in this country every year for strong drink at some
thing over $2,060,000. What are we going to do
about it? Shall this immense drain upon our na
tional life continue? —Baptist and Reflector.
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