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VOLUNE TIVL
NUM-BEE NINETEEN
Anglo-American, Preacher and Publicist Who is Doing "Proughtonian” Work in Little Pock —The Good Lobe Him
and the Wicked Wish He Had Neber Peen Porn,
Hustling
T
HEY CALL him “Ben Cox” —that’s all.
No handles, no titles, no frills, nor fur
belows—just plain “Ben Cox” in Little
Rock, and outside of the State of Apples
and orators (for he is known far be
yond her borders), they call him “Ben
Cox of Arkansaw.”
This striking, unusual man of affairs
is an Englishman by birth, an “Arkan-
saw Traveler” by adoption and practice, and
a princely man, citizen and preacher by the
manifold grace of God.
Those who love righteousness in Little
Rock know, with thanksgiving, that Ben Cox
and his stirring church are on the map,
while those who are godless devotees of
wanton worldliness and wide-open wicked
ness spend a good deal of their time “cuss
ing” his activity and wondering why he did
not stay in England—or wishing, doubtless,
that he had never been born on Albion’s Isle
or anywhere else beneath the stars.
Ben Cox (may the fates or the saints pre
serve him from the empty weight of D.D.)
is largely to Little Rock, that gay and
‘‘going” capital of Arkansaw, what Brough
ton is to Atlanta —he is both a watchman on
the tower and a fearless fighter in the ranks.
He does what every true preacher ought to
do —he makes his church a force and not a
farce, in the support of civic righteousness.
He believes in performing the orthodox du
ties of the minister—O, yes!—he preaches
the gospel, baptizes the believing, marries
the loving, comforts the sorrowing and bur
ies the dead; but he does something else—
Ben Cox believes in relating his church, with
spiritual purpose, to everything that makes
for the upward sweep of humanity.
Evil Doers “Fuss” and Tremble.
He believes that if a preacher does not teach
his church members the duties of Christian
citizenship and the sacredness of a spotless
ballot in all battles where a moral question
is involved, then Christian manhood is with
out meaning and he believes, away down in
the depths of his soul, that that preacher is
a craven and a coward.
And so on every Sunday night Ben Cox, the
Preacher, becomes Ben Cox the Citizen, as
well, and in a bristling prelude of ten to
twenty minutes, he talks on “current events,” deal
ing in ringing tones with the duty of his people to
the question of the hour.
And woe to that official, great or small, whose
office is a nest of crime and whose path is a trail
of slime. “Up and at him!” is the clarion cry. The
AMBITIOUS BOYS AND GIRLS—SEE PAGES EIGHT AND NINE
"SE7V COX OT ARKANSAW"
ATLANTA, GA., JUNE 30, 1910.
grafters tremble and the “boozers” fly!
From Over the Sea.
Twenty-eight years ago Ben Cox, a sturdy Eng
lish youngster, who must have been akin to the
kin of Oliver Cromwell, came with his parents from
England to Arkansas. I was a fortunate guest ten
years ago, and t here I learned the birthplace of
Ben Cox’s piety—“the altar of mother’s knee.”
Thirteen years -ago this very June, the young
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English American landed in Lttle Rock from the
Seminary in Louisville, to “supply” three months
at the First Baptist Church, then weak in numbers
and poor in purse. But the young man’s earnest,
powerful personality had so gripped the church
and congregation that they said to him ere the three
By WILLIAM D. UPSHAW.
REV. BEN COX.
months had passed: “Abide with us.” From two
hundred to six hundred members, and from $125 to
nearly $3,000 last year for preaching the gospel to
the lost in the “regions beyond”—this is the record.
And Cox says this is only a beginning—that he
and his people are just learning the joy and blessing
of sure enough giving.
He Smashes Conventionalities.
Ben Cox believes that having been in this
land of the free for twenty-one years and
more, and furthermore, being “a Baptist and
a Democrat,” he ought to be allowed to do
as he gentlemanly pleases—so he pleases to
be absolutely informal. Indeed, I think he
loves to smash conventionalities just to hear
’em rattle!
He rarely calls on anybody for prayer—
he lets the Spirit call. He does not give a list
of hymns to the chorister, but asks for the
SQng that the spirit of the hour calls for.
He preaches evangelistic sermons every Sun
day, expects God to save people and gets what
he expects.
The mid-week prayer meetings are live and
glorious and at these meetings believers are
often received for baptism.
Won’t Leave Little Rock.
Os course such a live man, doing such a
great work, has had all sorts of calls to go
to other fields, but the Lord has so signally
blessed him and given him the hearts of the
people of the city and section that he shuts
his eyes to the “yellow glare of gold” that
accompanies these foreign invitations and
resolutely closes his ears to every outside
call. And then he stands up and sings to
common metre that good old hymn:
I was not born in Arkansaw »
But I came here to stay,
And all the gold of other climes
Can’t make me go away!
A “Millinery Section.”
Fie! lie! the fair women of Arkansaw
are like some other fair women 1 one time
saw outside of Arkansaw —they will sit there
and look pretty and “mad” and absolutely
refuse to remove their hats while behind
some thirty-odd inches of “Merry Widow”
and what-not there may be hidden several
men who thus lose a truth that might make
them wise unto salvation. The fair women
out there forget like they do at other places—“in
Alaska” as Dr. Wm. Edwin Hall would say—that
it is superbly, exquisitely and unpardonably selfish
(Continued on Page 5.)
TWO VOLLABS ( A YEAH.
LIVE CENTS A COPY.
