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STAT&W
VOLUME SIX
NUMBER FOURTEEN
FLECKS of FOAM CAUGHT HERE and THERE
On the High Rolling Tides of the Great Southern Baptist\Convention —Session in Jacksonville Reaches High Water Mark.
By MARGARET BEVERLY UPSHAW.
HEN the gavel fell from the con
secrated hand of President Josh
ua Levering, and the Southern
Baptist Convention of 1910 ad
journed, in beautiful Baltimore,
the delegates began their home
ward journey on the tip-toe of
exuberant anticipation. And
why? Because Jacksonville,
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throbbing, hustling, smiling Jacksonville had
been selected as the next meeting-place.
For weeks in advance of the Convention
date, the publicity bureau had been issuing
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thrilling stories about the Floridian City and
its generous hospitality, but the publicity bu
reau might have saved itself its labors. The
breath was simply knocked out of the Jack
sonville citizens when the special trains from
all quarters of the Southland crept into the
city, panting with the heaviness of their re
spective burdens. Pullman after Pullman
disgorged its human freight and “The Greeks
were in possession of Troy.”
The Meeting Place.
Glistening Morocco Temple, the splendid
home of the Knight Templars, had been
ATLANTA, GA., MAY 25, 1911
chosen as the assembly hall for the sessions
of the Convention. The Temple is a brand*
new, magnificently equipped building, and
was in every way adapted to the uses of the
Convention save in the important factor of
space.
The opening session of the Convention was
held at three o’clock Wednesday afternoon,
May 17th, and fully four hundred people
turned away from the doors, unable to get
even within sound of the voices of the speak
ers.
By the next morning, however, the women
had begun their business sessions in the com
modious First Baptist Church, and by moan
ing and groaning and heroically stretching
its sides, the Temple auditorium made stand
ing room for most of the delegates. But we
have no criticism to make. Jacksonville just
didn’t know how big a thing the Southern
Baptist Convention really is.
Foreign Mission Night.
The most notable feature of this Conven
tion, and perhaps of any Convention that
has ever gone before it, was the “high-pres
sure” collection as some were pleased to call
it, that was taken in the interest of Foreign
Missions on Friday night.
The Board was staggering under a great
debt. Dr. R. J. Willingham, the faithful, de
voted Secretary was weighted down with dis
appointment and dismay. The issues of Bap
tist progress or Baptist retrogression were
in the balances. The question on everyone’s
lips was: “Shall we have a Convention col
lection, or shall we send the pastors back to
their churches with the problem and trust
to them to help work out the debt?”
The conservatives said: “No collection!”
The Insurrectos (if you please) said: “Take
a collection!” A mighty Paul would leap to
his feet one moment and set the assembly on
fire with an eloquent appeal, and the next mo
ment an equally zealous Apollos would fly
upon the scene with his water-pots and drown
out the conflagration.
The Man From Texas “Showed Them.”
But Rev. Jos. Gross oiled the altar and lit
the sacrificial pile. The needs of the For
eign Mission situation leaped from his lips
in vivid word-pictures, his heart was aflame
with pious anxiety for the Kingdom and its
progress. Concluding his speech in a whirl
wind of eloquence, he rushed to Dr. Dargan,
the President of the Convention, his voice
full of tears and his face drawn with anguish,
shouting aloud: “I have given all I thought I
could give. I have sacrificed until I thought
I had bared my heart to the quick. But,
brethren, I haven’t done my best. God help
us. None of us have. Here is my pledge
for six hundred dollars additional. That will
keep a missionary on the field twelve months.
Praise God for the privilege. Who’ll be the
next?”
The scene that followed beggars descrip
tion. The man from Texas had “shown
them,” and the conservatives, although they
tried nobly to quell “the riot,” were unable
to master the spirit of giving that had been
turned loose in that vast throng. Secretaries
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DR. B. D. GRAY.
pro tern, were pressed into service on every
side to record the subscriptions. Men raced
from pew to pew and from aisle to aisle gath
ering up the white slips that were raised in a
hundred hands. Agony was writ large on
white faces; strong men wept and prayed
and wept again. A struggle, such as the
world can not know and could never under
stand was being waged that night. Sacrifices,
over which the angels wept and the devils
in Hell blushed and trembled for having wit
nessed, were being made.
(Continued on page 8.)
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