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LATEST NTTHODS OF CHURCH LIGHTING
I *■ 1 •
eo
HEN for the first time in your life
you step from a dark street into an
auditorium which is flooded with
mellow light and yet not a single
glaring bulb in sight to show you
the source of the light, the sensa
tions you experience are very pleas
ing. If your eyes are a little weak,
you find as you walk into the room
that they are not instinctively half closing
themselves for protection against the usual at
tack made upon them by the hosts of dazzling
globes, for there is no such an array there to
smite them. As you walk down the aisle you
observe that as at noon on a summer’s day,
the light is so thoroughly diffused that no
shadow is cast. You go into the farthest cor
ner of the room and discover to your surprise
that you can see there as well as in the cen
ter ; you take up a book, look at the print and
see that it is as readable as in the daylight.
Then you look up to where the chandeliers,
hiding within them from view the high-power
globes, are sending their rays up to the ceiling
from which they fall softly everywhere, and
find yourself saying, “This is a beautiful light.”
Last summer one of the members of our
Church presented the Trustees with a sum of
money sufficient to enable us to do what
churches everywhere are doing; arrange our
auditorium along those lines which 20th-cen
tury knowledge declares make for comfort and
health of the men and women who worship
there. For modern science has of late come
up to the help of the clergy to show that if peo
ple fall asleep at the morning service it may
be that the sermon offered bv the minister is
JOASH, THE BOY KING, CROWNED
IN JUDEA.
April 16, 1911.
2 Kings 11:9-20.
Time —878 B. C.
Place —Jerusalem.
GOLDEN TEXT—“Blessed are they
that keep his testimonies, and that
seek him with the whole heart.”—
Psalms 119:2.
SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS.
What should I do?
I. Keep the Testimonies of the
Lord. The Golden Text.
God’s testimonies are wonderful,
and if we keep them they will give us
light and understanding. (Psalm 119:
129-130.) We should love the testi
monies of God (Psalm 119:119) and
make them our delight, and they will
be the men of our counsel. (Psalm
119:24, margin.) The blessing of the
Lord will be upon those who keep His
testimonies and seek Him with their
whole heart. The whole-hearted seek
er will find Christ, and find in Him all
that the soul will need for time and
eternity. If we seek Him and His
righteousness, then He will add unto
us all other needed things. (Matt. 6:
33, Phil. 4:19.) He will provide for
us and give us the desires of our
heart, if we delight ourselves in the
Lord and keep His testimonies.
(Psalm 37:3-4.)
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THE GOLDEN AGE, 814 Austell Building, Atlanta, Georgia.
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
11. Beware of False Ambition. Vs.
9-16.
Ambition hardens the heart against
all human feelings and transforms a
person into a demon. It transform
ed Athaliah, the queen-mother, in
to a demon. To keep from being de
prived of her position as Queen-moth
er she murdered her own grandchil
dren and then usurped the throne.
The blackest page in the history of
Judah is the reign of Athaliah. There
is no blacker page in the history of
any nation. There are but few paral
lels of her monstrous crimes. Nearly
all the crimes that have blackened the
pages of the histories of the nations
can be traced to the false ambition of
some one. Many of the dark deeds of
individuals would never be committed
were it not for false ambition.
111. Never Contract an Unscrip
tural Marriage.
Our Golden Text teaches us to keep
the testimonies of the Lord. Judah
suffered much because of the failure
of her kings and people to obey God’s
Word in regard to marriage. Jehosha
phat was one of the best kings Judah
ever had, and yet all this ruin and dis
honor came upon Judah through his
mistake of “joining affinity with
Ahab.” (2 Chron. 18:1.) This result
ed in Jehoram, his son, marrying the
daughter of Ahab —the infamous
Athaliah. (2 Kings 8:16-18, Ezra
9:12-14.) Jehoram “walked in the
The Golden Age for April 6, 1911.
'By REV. ALFRED E. ALTON, Rome, Neto York.
not the cause, but rather is the blame to be
placed on the janitor for the poor quality of
the ventilation he supplies. Another stage in
the evolution of church affairs is eliminating
the germ breeding carpet in favor of the more
sanitary hard-wood floor. And now here comes
the eye-specialists to point out that not the
second sermon of the day but the bad lights
are the cause of the headaches with which
some of the faithful go from their church to
their homes I
1 he committee of business men appointed to
have charge of the renovation of the interior
of the Church had no difficulty in finding a
contractor to lay the kind of hard-wood floor
we wanted; nor was there any delay in secur
ing artists to properly re-decorate our walls
and ceiling. But when the committee began
to consider the proposition of lighting they
found themselves in difficulty. One thing they
were agreed upon; the old system that had
been so long in vogue would not do. Low
hanging chandeliers running down both sides
of the church, and wall lights placed over the
pulpit made a lighting system that rendered
it impossible for people with weak eyes to sit
in our Church at night save with great discom
fort. Even men and women whose eyes are
strong had found it unpleasant to sit in the
pews and look toward the pulpit with those
strong light-rays burning their way into the
delicate organism of their eyes. There was
but one alternative that could be thought of,
however, and that was to put high up on the
ceiling rows of high-power lights. Several ob
jections to this method were noted, but we
could think of no better one. Fortunately for
By B.lLaey Hoge
way of the kings of Israel, as did the
house of Ahab, and did evil in the
sight of the Lord.” The reason given
for his so doing is, “for the daughter
of Ahab was his wife.” (2 Kings 8:18.)
Many today walk in the evil way be
cause they have an ungodly husband
or an ungodly wife. During the reign
of Ahaziah, her son, Athaliah, “was his
counsellor to do wickedly.” (2 Kings
8:26-27, 2 Chron. 22:3-4.)
IV. Trust God’s Promises. Vs.
9-16.
Athaliah would have destroyed the
whole house of David if she could. She
thought she had destroyed all of the
royal line of the house of David, but
she was mistaken. God had promised
David that his throne should be es
tablished forever. (2 Sam. 7:13-17, 1
Kings 11:36, 2 Kings 8:19, Jer. 33:17-
26.) He was not unmindful of His
promise, therefore one little lad was
hidden and through him God’s promise
to David was made good. All the
Athaliahs on earth can not make void
the least of God’s promises. When
God speaks to us in His Word we
should fully trust His promises for
they can not fail. All plots formed to
make the Word of God of none effect
are bound to fall. The plot of Athaliah
to destroy the house of David worked
for good to Joash. It had him reared
in the temple, removed from the evil
influences of his time and the evil in
fluences of the house of Ahab and
us, however, before we signed the contract, a
friend called our attention to a system, called
the Eye Comfort, of which he had heard in
Chicago. This, we were told, is a system of
indirect lighting but recently brought into use.
“Where can we see this system in working
order?” our committee inquired.
“It is a new thing,” our informant replied,
“and I know of no place nearer than Chicago
where it can be seen.”
Just at that time it happened that some of
us happened to see in a magazine a few pic
tures of the indirect illumination method as
used in the Capitol building at Washington. It
seemed to us on hearing and reading about it,
that this system would work well in our
Church. We found on inquiry that the ex
pense of lighting by this method would be but
a slight increase over the old way. An illum
inating engineer submitted a design for prop
erly lighting our Church by Indirect Illumina
tion and the committee voted to install it.
Now, it is not to be denied that if a thing
pleased everybody in a large company of peo
ple, that thing is able to withstand a hard test.
That is the test the Eye-Comfort System has
met and passed successfully here. Our people
are not only satisfied with it, but very much
pleased. The light it gives us, with its soft
diffusion and quiet efficiency, seems peculiarly
well adapted for church use.
Said one of the aged members of our Church
to me the other night after the service, “The
time may come when a glaring light-bulb in a
house of worship will seem as much out of
place as though some one should shout aloud
a coarse word.”
placed, under the tutelage of the the
pious priest Jehoida. Just so all plots
formed against God’s people today
will not only come to naught, but will
work for good to them that love the
Lord. (Rom. 8:28.)
V. Put God’s Word in the Hands of
Rulers. V. 12.
Jehoida “gave him the testimony”
—the Mosaic law. (Ex. 25:16, Ex.
31:18, Deut. 17:18-20, Psalm 78:5, Isa.
8:16-20.) This was to signify that he
must rule according to the law of God.
The anointing was a symbol of the
endowment with the Holy Ghost. (1
Sam. 10:6, 1 Sam. 16:13, Acts 4:27,
Acts 10:38, Heb. 1:9.) When rulers
govern according to the Word of the
Lord the land is prosperous and happy.
Therefore, seek to put God’s Word
into the hands of rulers and to have
all things done according to the Word
of the Lord.
VI. Crown the True King. Vs. 12-
20.
When the usurper was deposed and
the true king crowned the people
were filled with joy and clapped their
hands and rejoiced. Their joy can not
be compared to the joy that shall fill
this earth when Jesus, the true King,
is crowned and enthroned and reigns
with undisputed sway over this earth.
Let us labor to hasten the day when
Jesus, the true King, will come to the
throne and reign.
