Newspaper Page Text
taele "Bible Conference.
\ aiirsday night, March 3d, and extend-
Sunday, March 13th, the annual Bible
BHaference will be held in the Baptist Tabernacle,
Atlanta, Georgia. As has ever been true of these
Conferences, no effort has been spared to make
it as helpful as possible. It is not an easy task
to bring to a Conference like this from year to year
preachers and teachers of national and interna
tional reputation, but we have been signally blessed
in this respect, and each year we have been able
to maintain the standard of the year preceding, and
for abiding blessing we have gone forward. Our
list of speakers this year will be seen to equal
the best, and we feel that our friends and the
community generally will thank God for the rich
blessing that is in store.
Regular Speakers.
Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, England.
Rev. C. I. Schofield, D. D., of New York.
Rev. A. C. Dixon, D. D., of Chicago, 111.
Rev. A. T. Robertson, D. D., Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary, of Louisville, Ky.
Evangelist Melvin E. Trotter, of Grand Rapids,
Mich.
Mr. W. R. Moody, East Northfield, Mass.
Rev. James M. Gray, Chicago, 111.
And others.
Six Services a Day.
As usual there will be six services a day,
including the devotional hour at 9:00 o’clock, which
will be under the direction of Evangelist Trotter.
The speakers are all engaged to be present at the
opening and remain until the close, and we trust
that visitors to the Conference from out of the city
will do the same thing. It will be too rich a treat
for any of it to be missed.
Board and Lodging.
Persons desiring arrangements made for board can
send their names to “The Tabernacle Office,” Atlan
ta, Georgia, and those in charge will be glad to
attend to it. Board and lodging can be had for $1
Read's Ringing Reasons.
(Continued from Page 1.)
sails to meet the varying whims of an unregenerate
rationalism, but to spread the gospel news to every
creature.
The statement that “Christianity dreads light and
is out of harmony with the revelations of modern
science” shows that the writer also is not clear in
his understanding of the fundamentals of Christi
anity. He who said “I am the Light of the world”
and “I am the truth” passed the principle down to
His followers, and Christianity has throughout its
history been synonymous with all light and truth.
Her clash has never been with science, but with
“science, falsely so called,” and he who speaks of
any lack of harmony between Christianity and sci
ence or light shows his looseness of thought or
carelessness of expression. Whenever anything that
can be justly termed a revelation has been set forth
by science it has been welcomed by Christianity
not dreaded —and found to be in perfect harmony
with the Bible, her text-book, which has always been
and always will be the “book of oracles.” Notwith
standing the Doctor’s covert sneer at the reverence
that should accompany our every approach to the
inerrant and infallible Divine Record, we may place
ourselves safely on the stand taken by Canon Far
rar when he says “Nor has the widest learning and
acutest ingenuity of skepticism ever pointed to one
complete and demonstrable error of fact or doctrine
in the Old or the New Testament.”
Why It Loses Its Charm.
The suggestion of the Doctor that “For many a
modern man and woman it has lost its charm is
true because many a modern man and woman and
ancient likewise —is not in harmony with the spirit
of its Author, and not willing to comply with His
demands. Those who, like the Doctor, recommend
the emasculation of the Bible lose sight of the fact
that spiritual death is failure to accept the vicarious
atonement of Jesus Christ, whereby alone can man
be restored to his proper relation to God. They min
imize sin and confront it with an impotent Christ,
“born of poesy, suffered under philosophy, and raised
per day and up. Those taking lunch at the Taber
nacle lunch counter can save in their expenses.
The Key Thought.
In making the call for this Conference, we feel
led to stress the Lordship of Jesus, and the endue
ment of the Spirit, the power for service. In this
day of great and rapid material development of our
country, when the tendency is to weigh everything,
even the church, in material balances, it is well that
we rally around these two essential truths.
We trust that everybody interested in this line
of teaching will pray daily that this may be the
best of all our Conferences, and that the Spirit of
God may fall in mighty power upon us all.
May the God of all grace be with us.
Len G. Broughton.
Asa G. Candler's Ringing Words.
(Continued from last week.)
Ignorance certainly destroys, but so does en
lightenment, if it be not connected with the
regenerating influence of religion. Indeed there
are many crimes of which ignorance can not
be guilty; only one who can read and write can be
guilty of forgery; it requires an educated man to
wreck a bank without being guilty of burglary. Bur
glary itself begins to be one of the learned proses
sions. The most colossal gambling of this or any
other age, the huge system of dealing in futures re
quires the most far-reaching knowledge and intelli
gence for its most successful prosecution. Increase
of knowledge which does not bring growth in relig
ious character, augments the attacking forces which
destroy life, and weakens the defensive forces that
protect life, increases the strength of desire and
passion, and enfeebles the power of virtue and self
sacrifice. It is of the last importance, therefore,
that as we multiply the instrumentalities by which
secular knowledge is acquired, we do also increase
the means for knowing the Word of Life. Our com
mon schools must not outrun our Sunday schools.
The Bible must be given to all classes, old and
again in the minds of those possessed with the de
sire of doing good.” Per contra, the idea of Rev. G.
Campbell Morgan, who says: “To those of us who
still believe in the Bible as the final and infallible
Word of God, there remains the Christ of virgin
birth, of virtuous life, of vicarious death, and victo
rious resurrection.”
This leads us to the point of consideration of the
fallacious idea (which is the kernel of the Doctor’s
article) that “the churches are doomed” unless they
“restate their dogmas, reshape their formularies,
and reissue their message.” Here again history is
lost sight of, as the past as well as the present shows
that the victorious march of Christianity has always
been led by those whose virile life has been the prod
uct of the old and unchanging certitudes. This, not
withstanding the ever-present tendency to take it
easy or make it easy.
The Doctor is in error in suggesting that there is,
or has been, any fundamental difference between
the Christianity of Apostolic days, or mediaeval
times, of the Reformation, and of today. Notable
spiritual world-movements and upheavals have all
been inspired by the great truths of the Old Book,
proclaimed by the stalwarts like Bunyan, Milton,
Knox, Calvin, Edwards, Finney, Wesley, Moody and
Torrey. Wherever these fundamentals, held by all
these men and many thousands of others in common,
are faithfully proclaimed, they are found ample and
sufficient to bring man to his right relationship to
his God and his fellowman; now as in the days of
old. When they are forsaken, barrenness is the re
sult, along with elimination of power, as in the case
of Henry Ward Beecher, B. Fay Mills and others of
that type.
From the stalwart type of Christianity has also
emanated the movements for the general betterment
of the race. The hospitals, orphanages, asylums,
and other institutions for the amelioration of the ills
of the body, have not been founded by such men as
Bolingbroke, Spinoza, Voltaire, Astruc, Darwin,
Spencer, Wellhausen, Briggs, Harper, Foster, and
other self-styled “new thought” men whose coat of
arms is “an interrogation point rampant, above
The Golden Age For January 27, 1910.
young, rich ahh A., | /
whatever else that man fail to know. I do not mean
to be understood by a thorough knowledge of the
Scriptures what would be a thorough knowledge for
a commentator or even a preacher, but for one who
would consider himself fit to teach in a Sunday
school. A knowledge thorough enough for a busi
ness man who needs the Bible to guide him, to be
lieve in, more thorough than a mere voluble knowl
edge. A knowledge acquired by having read the
Book through more than once. How often do we
stop to digest the full meaning of “Thy Kingdom
come, in earth as it is Heaven.” How can we under
stand in all its fullness, how His will is “done in
Heaven” unless we know the Book which is the
only revelation to us of that Heaven, where the
saved of all ages do “shine as the stars forever and
forever?” Such thorough study of the Word would
prevent narrowness. The “isms” and “schisms” and
unbrotherliness of the world. You can hardly find
a little cranky body of believers, off to themselves
anywhere that they have not some little text that
they are resting upon. When we get the idea that
there is such a thing as development in the Scrip
ture, that there is truth everywhere in the Word,
when we get fully hold of the idea that God does
speak to us through this medium, we will get to
gether and be as “an army with banners.” If we
are ever going to study our Bibles carefully and
critically, let us begin in the church, put our stand
ard as high as we can, study together with the best
means, “turn on the light,” and when we have done >
our best, let us give our best to the church, of whom
God has made us teachers.
If this divine Word be universally known by our
people, all other knowledge which may come to them
will be touched and transfigured by its heavenly
light. We shall dwell, then, apart with God, occu
pying the highest heights of individual and national
greatness, walking in the companionship of the great
spirits of all ages who have sought after and found
the Lord, while, from the excellent glory shall fall
upon us, benedictions declaring how with
Father is wel-1 pleased.
bishops dormant, and whose motto is Query.”
Not a Model Martyr—But a Redeemer.
The salvation of the man, the city, the state, the
world, will never be compassed except by the
plain, old-fashioned preaching of truth by those who
believe in it and who will not nullify it by the sub
stitution of a model martyr for a Redeemer who has
made salvation possible for all who will accept it
through His vicarious atonement.
Such arrested growth as may exist among the
churches does not appear among those that have
adhered to the fundamental truths of the gospel,
proclaimed with simplicity and power. They are
increasing in membership and efficiency; establish
ing missions at home and abroad, and correcting the
evils resulting from environment through regener
ated and purified hearts; and their members lead in
the various reforms. The depleted ranks, deserted
prayer-meetings and diminishing Sunday audiences
are to be noticed where the churches have forgotten
their mission and “with itching ears, turned away
their ears from the truth and turned unto fables”
that have been set forth by the rationalists, materi
alists and destructive critics who have had the floor,
the press and the pulpit to a large degree for the
past twenty years, thinning the ranks of theological
seminaries and spreading the virus of ungodliness
among the people. The need of the hour is not re
statement, but application of truth.
Hon. William Jennings Bryan has well said that
‘it is better to regulate the temperature than to alter
the thermometer.” We need no “reformed theology
and social gospel,” but such emphasis upon the truth
as will send the gospel to every creature —not each
settlement. Those who say that “Religion is not of
the stars, but of the street,” should remember that
the religion that is not first anchored beyond the
stars is not the one that will thoroughly effect the
Street. He who begins at the connection of the back
room with the sewer and the placing of the flower
pot in the front window is likely to end there and
leave those in the settlement with “no hope and with
out God in the world.”
J. V. READ.
