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VOLUME SIX
NUMBER TWELVE
A MARIANNA MIRACLE
Arthur Fox of Tennessee Does Wonders as an “Arkansaw Traveler”—Membership Leaps From Seventy to Two Hundred
and Forty in Ten Years and a Half — House Climbs From $157,50 to S3O,OOO—A Romance in Progress.
ERILY, the day of miracles has not
passed. I know that no more does
the water, under the Master’s
look, “blush itself into wine”; no
more does He stand by the bier of
the widow’s son and give back the
dead boy to his mother’s clinging
arms; no more does He walk in
the raging Galilean sea until the
_ A _
waters “become pavement under His sacred
feet”—but the day of miracles has not pass
ed. When a man steeped in the gutter of sin
buttressed barnacled on a pedestal of mor
ality and self-conceit, falls before Sinai, con
victed of sin and rises from the foot of Cal
vary’s cross, redeemed—a new heart in his
bosom, a new song in his mouth—when the
putrid lagoon of his life with all its miasma
of deadly influence is turned into a crystal
river of beauty and blessing. I tell you that
before a miracle like that skepticism is
shamed into a stammering hush—for such a
miracle is as wonderful as the creation of a
world— it takes nothing less than Omnis
cience to conceive and Omnipotence to per
form them both.
But when you see a positive crop of mira
cles like these gathered in one community it
does seem that it would be enough to “spike
the cannon” of the Devil in that community
until the Judgment Day.
It Reads Like a Romance.
Let the “Concord School of Philosophy” re
vive in extra session, or the
faculty of the Chicago Uni
versity School brush the cob
webs from some of their
glasses and come down to the
“mourner’s bench” instead of
trying to “explain away” this
Marianna miracle of which I
tell you.
In June, 1908, Arthur Fox,
a young man yet in his twen
ties—fresh from a brilliant
record at Carson and Newman
College and unspoiled because
he was the only man who ever
won Declaimer’s Debater’s and
Orator’s medal—all three, in
the history of the institution
—this genial, humble, ener
getic “medalsome” Tennessee
boy became pastor of the
struggling little Baptist
Church in Marianna, Ark. He
found seventy noble, but rath-
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ATLANTA, GA., MAY 11, 1911
By WILLIAM D. UPSHAW.
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er discouraged members worshipping in a lit
tle wooden building that brought only $157.50
when it was sold.
Fox fell on his knees and asked God for
victory.
He carried the battle “into the enemy’s
country” by pitching a tent on the public
square with gilded saloons on every corner.
He preached the “old old story” with glo-
BAPTIST CHURCH, MARIANNA, ARKANSAS.
REV. ARTHUR FOX,
rious power, a mighty revival swept the com
munity, with one hundred and five conver
sions—embracing many of the prominent citi
zens of the town.
And while the people were yet wondering
about that wonderful meeting another re
vival “broke out”—or fell from the skies on
the hearts of men, and a new church house
was a necessity.
There were very few people of means, but
that happy, hopeful church determined to
build for the present and the future, and
now on a commanding corner one block from
the public square there stands a beautiful
commodious workshop for God, costing about
Thirty Thousand Dollars. Built of steel gray
pressed brick with a high order of art glass
windows, there are twenty-seven rooms—
nearly all of them tributary to the Audito
rium—seating all told over fifteen hundred
people.
Now isn’t that a miracle in church build
ing ?
Yes, but back of it stands the infinitely
greater miracle of regeneration.
“Old Folks” In Sunday School.
But Arthur Fox had a rare foundation on
which to begin. Thirteen years ago, when I
lectured at Marianna, she had about 1,700
population instead of her 5,000 today. Then
I was rolled in my rolling chair around to
that little out-of-the-way church, and to my
surprise and delight I found about all the “old
ONE DOLLAR AND FIFTY CENTS
A YEAR :: FIVE CENTS A COPY
folks” in that meager mem
bership in Sunday-school. I
said in my heart—and I told
them so: “That sort of loyalty
will win someday.” It has
won I And about the happiest
man now in all that growing
town is Superintendent Tur
ner who, as a young man, was
then at the head of that Sun
day-school that had in it then
more “grown folks” than chil
dren.
And the grown people,
thank the Lord, have not for
gotten yet how to go to God’s
house on God’s day to study
God’s Word.
Pastors everywhere put
your parents in Sunday
School and keep them there
and by and by a miracle will
(Continued on Page 5.)