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Mountain 'Peaks'at North Georgia Conference
"Bishop Hendrix, of Kansas City, Presides Ober Splendid Session, and Preaches Great Sermon—President Dickey, of Emory
College, Stirs 'Baptist Congregation.
AST week was a time of much “hurry
ing to and fro” among the two greatest
religious bodies in Georgia.
While the Baptist hosts were glo
riously submerging the hustling, bus
tling city of Dublin, the Methodists of
the North Georgia Conference were
“setting fire” to Atlanta, the metrop
olis of the South. Bishop E. R. Hen-
p z
drix, of Kansas City, called the conference together
on November 17 in the spacious auditorium of St.
Paul’s, Atlanta, a building seating about 1,500 people
and one of the handsomest church houses in Georgia
Methodism.
Bishop Hendrix is a man of fine appearance and
signal ability and proved himself on more than one
occasion during the conference and demonstrated
the pulpit and platform power which caused him to
be elected bishop.
The annual assembling of the Methodist preachers,
after the year of toil is always a “mountain play”
experience of Christian fellowship. This year was
no exception, and with their months of separation
full of labor and many with their arms full of sheaves
they found themselves recounting their labors and
rejoicing in many signal victories for Christ and his
cause.
Carolina’s Vigorous Son.
Another “hilltop” experience during the conference
came when Dr. J. C. Kilgo, President of Trinity Col
lege, spoke with vigorous, rugged, eloquence on
“Christian Education the Bulwark of the Nation,”
calling in clarion tones for those who love God and
their children to rejoice in investing their money
for the largest possible good of their youth.
Another great hour, not in the conference, but yet
a part of it was the masterful, heart-moving sermon
of President J. E. Dickey, of Emory College, at the
First Baptist Church on Sunday morning. His theme
was the always beloved “John 3:16,” and a regular
camp-meeting came very near “breaking out” or
falling down on that great Baptist congregation.
But, of course, it was natural that the greatest
general interest should gather about the sermon of
Bishop Hendrix at St. Paul’s Church on Sunday
morning. We are giving a synopsis of that marvel
ous sermon for the benfit of those who could not
hear it:
Salvation Through Self-Effacement is the Doctrine
Taught by Able Methodist Leader.
In beginning his sermon, Bishop Hendrix recalled
the story of the man who asked a great artist who
was chiseling a statue, why he wasted so much of
the marble, and the reply was that, “The more the
marble wastes, the more the statue grows.” He
said, so it was with man; as the deep, ingiained in
stincts of selfishness and self-gratification were elim
inated, he grew into his perfect stature. He contin
ued:
\ O TLANTA, GA., NOVEMBER 25, 1909.
Q r
“The most valuable asset of Christianity is its
seasoned men —men whom God’s chisel has shaped.
God cares little for temples, but much for men. He
has never hesitated to raze the temple to the ground
when necessary to raise up men. Whenever mere
form was substituted for true religion, God raised up
a prophet to tell the people that the worship of God
must be first in spirit.”
Speaking of John as the forerunner of Christ, he
said:
“John appeared in the first third of human life,
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when most men are unfit for heaven, the mighty, sea
soned minister. Never did man address larger audi
ences. The soldiers emptied their camps and came
out to near him. His life wrought a great religious
reformation. He brought about a new epoch. Some
one has said, ‘lt is difficult to tell the truth to a
thousand people.’ The influence of such a crowd
upon the preacher is so great, he is tempted to trim
to avoid wounding the feelings of any; to gloss over
the truth. But John was no such reed shaken by the
wind. He was not the people’s idol, nor the people s
echo, eager to catch the ear of the people and rise
to popular favor.
“What other man in human history was ever asked,
‘Are you not the Christ?’ Some thought he was Eli
jah, come down in the chariot of fire, and others
thought him the promised Redeemer. Such was the
hold he had upon the people.”
Elements of Greatness.
Here the preacher applied the test of real great
ness, the elements of which he said were self-knowl
edge, self-mastery, self-manifestation. Continuing, he
said:
“Self-knowledge; whoever had it to a greater ex
tent than John? ‘I am not the Christ,’ he declared.
There was the meautiful modesty apparent in the
words: ‘One will come after me, the latchet of whose
shoe I am not worthy to loose.’ And again, ‘I am
but the forerunner; He that comes after me is
mightier than I.’ To all the people he said, ‘I am not
the Christ, but one sent before Him.’ He never as
pired to be beyond what God appointed him to be.
“When John’s disciples came to him and said,
‘That one you baptized beyond Judea is making more
disciples than you are,’ what did he say? Study the
narrative in which it is now recorded how John sent
his disciples to Christ to ask Him, ‘Art Thou He that
is to come, or shall we look for another?’ Here was
self-mastery. He did not seek for himself a single
honor. That strange figure dressed in camel’s hair
never stooped earthward except to lift men heaven
ward.”
Coming to a definition of the faculty of self-mani
festation, he said:
“The great man manifests himself in everything
he does —in his gestures, the look in his eye, the
tones of his voice, by his dress and his actions.
“What made John the most perfect of the apostles
was his grasp of the central truth of car holy relig
ion; redemption by sacrifice.
“Without the shedding of blood, nothing was pos
sible. Nothing really great has ever been accom
plished in the world’s history unless life blood has
gone into the work. Florence Nightingale, when
asked the secret of her beautiful, happy life, said: ‘I
have never kept back anything from God.’ Jenny
Lind, when besought to tell how she sang so divinely,
replied: ‘I always sing for the ear of God.’ John put
all of himself into his great mission and preached
to the world redemption through sacrifice. He got a
glimpse of the divine purpose when he beheld the
Son of God give His own life-blood in atonement for
the sins of mankind. Today, Christ rules the world
through His five wounds. He is the ‘lamb of God
who taketh away the sins of the world.’ ”
Impressing the lesson of this divine sacrifice, Bish
op Hendrix reminded his hearers that "the things
that make for our increase here, make for our de
crease in things eternal. The sensuous things which
appeal to us here, diminish us for the life hereafter,”
and proceeded to contrast selfishness and self-sacri
fice and to riddle the popular saying that the law of
self-preservation is the first law of nature.
The Law of the Jungle.
“The law of self-preservation is the law of the
coward,” he declared with fervent conviction. “The
man who saves his own life, regardless of the lives
(Continued on Page 9.)
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