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FORTY-NINE
State Secretary Georgia Young Men's Christian Association Gibes Polverful to Dr. Aked's Deadly
Modernism —M Positive Tonic to Faith and Philosophy.
F our recent editorial in The Golden Age
—“Aked’s Aching Void” —had done no
more than to bring to our readers the
following powerful paper from Georgia’s
state secretary of the Young Men’s
Christian Association, we would feel
that we had done a genuine service to
the cause of vital Christianity.
Mr. J. V. Read, who made this notable
I
contrnu^om— an utterance that n|ever /‘saw the
PP&certain prominent magazine because its
Ms the Blood-Red of the Cross instead of the
Sceptical “Yellow,” for which the magazine was evi
dently looking, is the very kind of man for the lead
ership of Young Men’s Christian Associations in the
South or anywhere. He has —
» * * Sounded out a note that has never known
retreat.”
He has seen with his own eyes the tragic differ
ence between the work of the associations where
“old-time religion” is preached with evangelical tone
to young men every Sunday, and where, alas! socio
logical and scientific problems are discussed instead
of the gospel of Christ that both saves and solves.
He recently saw the experience of one association
in the South tell the story of all the rest, every
where, that have tried it —an association where con
viction for sin and salvation alone through the
Blood was preached to crowds, and several young
men were converted every Sunday. And then he
saw take charge of that association a doubting de
votee of “hire criticism” and all its blighting follies,
and then he saw the crowds dwindle, conversions
absolutely cease and the finances of the association
“get going” on the toboggan slide, while a great
city looked on in pity and the emergency alarm was
sounded on every side. Finally, another secretary
came, believing and teaching “old-time religion.”
The Book and the Blood were exalted. The Sunday
services were given a deeply evangelical turn, and
men with hungry, starving souls came flocking back
to feed on the manna of the skies.
And so, J. V. Read, with all his consecrated schol
arship, has no patience on earth with anything but
the old-time gospel that brings young men down to
their knees in repentance and up from their knees
in saving, rejoicing Faith.
Urged by the editor of The Golden Age, not only
to allow the publication of his answer to Dr. Aked,
but to give a review of the circumstances which led
him to write it, he smilingly took a piece of paper
and wrote at the top of it, “Aked—and Why He
Ached,” and then “lifted the curtain as follows”:
“Aked, and Why He Ached.”
“Sometime ago, one of the members of the Fifth
Avenue Baptist church of New York being in Eng
land, and listening to the preaching of Rev. C. F.
Aked, whose claim to distinction had been his icono
clastic achievements, was captivated by what Di.
READ’S RINGING REASONS
ATLANTA, GA., JANUARY 27, 1910.
Munhall terms “his hand-organ rhetoric,” and this
resulted in the bringing of Dr. Aked to the pastorate
of the aforesaid New York church. His achieve
ments in this pastorate seem to be along about the
same lines as in England —in conversions, and build
ing up in the faith quite moderate; in undermining
the faith of many somewhat immoderate.
“Like some others who consider the becoming
notable through good works too slow a process, he
evidently decided that to become notorious by the
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short-cut would be pr "arable, and launched a series
of magazine articles v destroy the fundamen
tal principles of the chu. he in his ordina-
tion vows had sworn to ,v mse articles
entitled, “The Salvation of Christian. assumes
the false premise that Christianity is x/rompetent
to cope with man’s need, and advises the substitu
tion for it of a sociological system that has repeat
edly been tried and found wanting. He suggests
the abandonment of the theology whose champions,
like Edwards, Moody, Torrey, Chapman, and others,
have found the largest houses too small to hold the
eager listeners, for the rationalistic theories whose
promoters have lived to see them abandoned on their
native heath. Wellhausen’s lecture hall at Gottin
gen University was visited sometime ago and the
visitor was surprised to find that but one student
was regularly attending his lectures and that during
this particular hour this student was paring his fin
ger-nails instead of taking notes. Professor Cheyne
stands among the leaders of this school in Great
Britain, and he has for some years delivered no lec
tures in Oxford University for the reason that no
students have applied for these courses. With some
thing of a flourish of trumpets he came to this
country and gave a course of indifferent lectures at
Johns Hopkins University. At the opening lecture
he was greeted by an enthusiastic audience of six
hundred; at his last lecture the audience had dwin
dled to thirty-five uninterested hearers.
“These magazine articles proposed the substitu
tion of the hypothetical theories of evolution for the
dynamic and practical religion of the Bible that has
proven victorious through the struggles of the cen
turies, and attempted to convince the readers that
reading the Bible without the help of a brand new
alleged historical expert is dangerous.”
Verily, Mr. Read thought this a case where he
was called upon to “contend for the faith once deli’
ered unto the saints,” and as the editor of the maga
zine had asked readers of the articles to make such
comment as they thought justified by the importance
of the subject, he sent his views in the following
article. It was returned with a statement by the
editor that it was “impracticable to make use of it.”
This was learned by the editor of The Golden Age
in connection with some discussion of his recent
editorial on “Aked’s Aching Void,” and being tre
mendously impressed with its timeliness and its
trumpet tones of Truth, he prevailed upon Mr. Read
to allow its publication in these columns:
Editor Magazine, New York.
Dear Sir: Stripped of its platitudes, and the prolix
verbiage “made in Germany,” the article is found
to be an irenicon. With adroit circumlocution it
asks that evangelical Christianity shall sit compla
cently by and see its standards torn from the mast.
It suggests that Christendom permit those who have
taken upon themselves the vows of obligation as
standard bearers to dishonestly dismantle the forti
fications (their salaries received while doing this
being money received under false pretenses), and
that she then should assist in hoisting the standards
of the enemy.
The writer displays his lack of knowledge of his
tory, which tells us that at no time has Christianity
been popular. Its founder was crucified, and but one
of His disciples escaped a violent death. The “prom
inent business man in New York City” who left his
church “on account of dogmatic and doctrinal differ
ences * * which intellectual honesty would not
permit him to overlook” is but a specimen of what
has existed in large numbers during all periods of
time, and these would have probably shown more
“intellectual honesty” had they acknowledged that
they had never had a proper conception of Christi
anity “because the carnal mind is not subject to the
law of God.” This class of persons misconceives
the mission of the church, which is not to trim her
(Continued on Page 6.)
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