Newspaper Page Text
GOOD NEWS FROM MEMPHIS
Law and Order Campaign is On---“ Men and Religion Forward Movement” Is Gripping Civic Leaders---Dr. J. L. White
Goes to Silver Bay as Their Special Representative.
EMPHIS is moving—at last!
Surely all those copious edito
rials in The Golden Age and the
“hot air” performances of this
strenuous editor and talker in
that gay old bounding metropolis
was not wholly in vain. The
press is waking up. And the
battering rams of the religious
LU
and civic leaders are beginning at last to batter
down the walls of the citadels of sin. A friend
writes:
“That great newspaper of the Middle West,
The Commercial-Appeal, is leading a campaign
for law and order.” Illicit liquor sellers, gam
blers, idlers, moral perverts and immoral para
sites are “turning white under the gills.”
We knew it. We’ve said so with tongue and
pen—that whenever the press of Memphis
should actually wake up and determine to do
the thing, the thing would be done. :
The rock is beginning to crack —it may be
several years before it is wholly sundered, but
there is hope in the hearts of the workers and
light in the Memphian sky.
The “Central Temple” Gleams Afar.
In the forefront of this stirring campaign for
religious activity and civic decency is Dr. J. L.
White, who, for a dozen years, was such a fac
tor in Georgia’s upward movements, and
whose grip on Memphis we recently told in a
story in The Golden Age.
What shall the message be ? This question
tugged away at the editor’s heart? Two suc
cessive midnights had found
A Message
That Thrills
And Fills.
giving—when the great Jack
sonville convention, or part of it at least, had
raised about $25,000 to help wipe out the big
foreign mission debt and had joyously stayed
until they could bid each other “Good Morn
ing.”
The next midnight had found a tired,
travel-worn editor, bathing his face afresh
to keep feeling fresh while preparing “copy”
for printers and the publishing day that will
not wait. The morning came and with it the
insistent question: “The other copy is ready
—but what shall the editorial message be?”
And then the editor’s eyes fell on—
“ The Stars of Life.”
It was the “Saturday evening” of Barbara
Boyd in The Miami Metropolis— the brave,
clean afternoon paper in Miami, the pict
uresque dream—the growing metropolis of
far-south Florida, where the people were
coming that morning to hear a message from
that editor’s tongue, while many thousands
were waiting, he knew, for a message from
his pen. “The Stars of Life”—the very
words rested and rewaked his heart.
Let Barbara Boyd tell us this week how to
keep the stars shining in a sky of cloud and
storm:
That fine, old German, Carl Schurz, says,
“Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in
touching them with your hands, but like the
sea-faring man on the desert of waters, you
choose them as your guides, and following
them, you reach your destiny.”
That thought is uplifting, isn’t it? One
knows how the mariner in the silent watches
of the night looks up to the stars to get his
“ THE STARS OF LIFE”
him yet awake.
The first had witnessed a
wonderful time of living and
The Golden Age for July 20, 1911.
The great “Central Temple,” which is to be
not only the home of the Central Baptist
Church, but general headquarters for every-
t t
IMr
i f 1 I
i IM i
■y I I JM I
> IMIb ILf, ?
(
i I&jsI i
• •
t DR. J. L. WHITE. !
? ?
thing that means the religious and civic uplift
of Memphis and the mid-Mississippi Valley,
has already practically begun in certain practi-
bearing. And likewise the soul, in the silent
times of life, can look upward to its ideals,
and swing back again into the true course.
It is essential to have ideals, if we want to
get the most and the best out of life. Life is
not lived as leisurely as it once was. It is
hurried and worried, feverish and frantic.
Without ideals, which, like the great, silent
stars, are unmoved by all the fret they see
below them, we cannot tell whither we are
going, whether we are making headway to
ward arriving at something definite, or
whether we are merely spending our lives in
a frantic rush without ever moving ahead.
We need a glance upward now and then at
our ideals to tell just where we are, whether
really stationary, or off the course, or mak
ing progress in the right direction.
As to what these ideals shall be, each
needs to decide for himself. But in deciding,
he should look far ahead into the years, and
see if when the destiny they have guided to
is reached, it is worth while, and if the jour
ney by which it has been reached has been a
happy one. For it isn’t only the accomplish
ment that is to be considered, but how we ac
complish. We spend our life in the doing, and
this must be worth while, as well as the
thing done.
Therefore, one needs to think seriously
what their ideals are to be set aloft to light
and guide. One needs to listen to the inner
voice that tells what they shall be. It speaks
more truly for real happiness than the voice
of the world. For ft is the voice of the best
self, and it is only in heeding this, that a man
or woman finds truest happiness. And
this is, after all. what every one seeks, no
matter what road he may take to reach it.
And so, having decided, set aloft vour
ideals for guides, and then take a look at
them every now and then for your bearings.
It is the surest way of knowing if you are off
the track, if you are drifting, if you are head-
cal forms of institutional Church work, is ex
pected to crystalize in the coming fall —and all
Memphis will be electrified by the movement.
Mr. W. H. Moore, the wise and noble layman,
who was pastor’s assistant and business secre
tary of Dr. White’s Church, has been ordained
to the full work of the ministry and becomes
city missionary, and Prof. Altha I. Ruby— ‘ ‘ the
only Ruby,” his friends call him, already Sun
day-school superintendent and music director
- —becomes the pastor’s assistant as well.
White Goes to Silver Bay.
Dr. White’s place in the heart and thought
of Memphis leaders is shown by the fact that
he goes as the guest and special representative
of the Committee of 100 of the “Men and Re
ligion Forward Movement,” to Silver Bay,
Lake George, N. Y. The great Conference will
be held on July 22-30, and will be, not only a
refreshing vacation at one of the most beau
tiful spots in the world, but will be full of work
and plans—of virile spiritual masculinity for
winning the world in the name of the conquer
ing Redeemer.
Dr. White has also been made chairman of
the Committee on Evangelism, which has the
responsible work of the great campaign to be
held in Memphis February 5-13, next year—
one of ninety such meetings to be held in the
great cities of the United States.
We rejoice in all the great good news from
Memphis, the mighty metropolis of the Middle-
West.
ed in the wrong direction, or if you are forg
ing steadily ahead in the path you set out
upon. Life offers no truer compass for the
conduct of its everyday affairs. Ideals are
indeed the stars of life, shining patiently,
shining steadily, never swerving no matter
how we may shift and change. Therefore
they should be thought upon seriously and
deliberately in their choosing, and then
steadily adhered to for guidance. So will
life’s course be well sailed and the desired
port made at last.
BARBARA BOYD.
* * * # * * ❖
Yes, yes! And the tired, thirsting uplook
ing soul must have for its supremest Star,
the hope that outshineth all tinsel stars of
earth and pelf and self.
The deathless soul with an appetite for the
Immortal cannot be satisfied until all its les
ser stars are lost in the Star of Bethlehem.
EPIGRAMS.
By Elam Franklin Dempsey, B. D.
Vacation is a test of character.
Godless wealth is gathered woe.
In certain temptations, it is brave to run.
’Tis a graceless grace that dancing gives.
The Spirit of God leads; the spirit of evil mis
leads.
GET A COOK BOOK.
American Woman’s Cook Book,
Handsome 384 page, bound in durable, san
itary oil-cloth, free to THE GOLDEN AGE
subscribers and their friends. Send SI.BO
quick and secure a copy, and have your sub
scription moved up one year.
5
