Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

NEW YEAR’S DAY-A VISION-Page Four j^fo w ”l|' fol %■*% ■ j #»',it, INJU^ - >jjCgHE STATJ* \fo VOLUME EIGHT NUMBER FORTY-FIVE DUBOSE DEMOLISHES CRITICS Eloquent New Pastor of the First Methodist Church, Atlanta, Delivers, Before “lhe Gideons," an Address of Crushing Logic on ‘ The Bible Challenged"—Unique Reply to Those Who Would Shut Out Bible From Public Schools. T eons” was a notable illustration of Dr. Du- Bose ’s power as a thinker and speaker. The address was delivered by request, as a special reply to the recent socialistic raidings against the Bible in public schools, and is worthyof careful study and the widest possible ciculation. Dr. Dußose said: THE BIBLE CHALLENGED. To attempt a defense of the Bible seems lit tle less than a gratuity. The Book which has had, in some of its parts, a history of at least four thousand years, has attained an exceptional standing in the court of human judgment, and is, by that token, able to main tain its own claims. But the cause of the Bible is further enhanced in the fact that it has outlived all the great world-empires, and that its teachings have dimmed the glory, and discounted the tenets, of all the old religions, so that, while these have fallen into decay, or exist only as fetiches and obstructive supersti tions, the religion of the Bible shows every year,' the vigor of an endless youth, and the quality of an endless spiritual and ethical per tinency. Can a book concerning which so much is admitted be in need of defense? The answer must be an unequivocal nega tive —namely, that the Bible is its own defense, and that the history which it has made is an argument that must ever convince and compel the collective thought and faith of enlightened men. Indeed, a spiritual consciousness abides in the written Scriptures, which gives them the semblance and force of an individual life, quite unique, and clothes them with an insistency wholly unequaled in literature. But it remains, in spite of these tremendous facts, that the Bible has been, and is still be ing challenged—not by individual critics and skeptics alone, but also by schools of socalled liberal thought, by partizan organizations, and by many secular affiliations. A concrete ex ample of such partizan and conventional chal lenge of the Book has recently found wide pub licity through the local press, and because of this, not a few susceptible minds have been dis tressed by haphazard and irresponsible utter ances. HAT the pulpit of Atlanta has re ceived an able addition, and the forces of civic righteousness a fearless and forceful champion in the coming of Dr. H. M. Dußose, of Augusta, is manifest from his rec ord, both before and since his com ing to Georgia’s capital city. His address before the Atlanta “Gid- ATLANTA, GA., JANUA Not the Book, but the People, Need Defense. How shall these and other like assaults upon the Christian Scriptures he met? The issues should be pointedly and directly joined, and that with serious and studied argumentation. A defense should be made, not indeed of the Book, which does not need it, but of that death less human consciousness—expressed in con science, thought and emotion—to whose hunger and needs the Bible is heaven’s perfect an swer. The Bible needs no apology, but the mil lions of men and women whose struggle with poverty and sin, and millions more who ; bi W 1 DR. H. M. DUBOSE, Pastor First M. E. Church, Atlanta. are beset by the lust and perils of wealth, with millions also, of little children who have not yet come into the tragic knowledge of either poverty or wealth, and to whom sin is not yet a chain to bind —these are entitled to a defense against those who malign the word of God, and who seek to break its healing and saving pow er over man’s minds. The State, too, repre senting the whole order of social and civic life, in which is bound up the destinies of all its peoples, is entitled to defense against those who would discredit and remove the source of those principles upon which it rests for a foun dation. The general mind of the people of all Chris- OUR NEW FIELD EDITOR—Page Five tian States is naturally reverent toward the Bible. The multitudes silently allow the claims of revelation. Even where there is no religious conformity, this reverence for the Word x is generally present. It is the need of the State no less than the need of the Church, to have this latent reverence stirred into an activity whose fruit will be absolute righteous ness in both private and public conduct. He who helps to strengthen this reverence for the Bible, is not only in the line of true disciple ship, but also exhibits the true loyalty of citi zenship—moral anarchy and treason —whoso- ever purposes to confuse and efface the rever ence of men for that Book, the same is the foe of a sound and responsible public sentiment, and is no less the abettor of a spirit whose ten dency is to weaken the authority and stability of the commonwealth. These, I know, are strong asseverations, but they are deliberately framed in refutation of the socialistic and dan gerous utterances of men who seek to sow, where invited and where not invited, the seeds of moral anarchy and treason; for, if the con sciences of men be separated from the teach ings of the Bible, then must the world fall heir to an utterly negative and nihilistic creed. Then must it be clearly seen that the advocates of the highest civilization have been mistaken in setting up purity, righteousness and justice as standards, and that their contraries, or, at best, some weak counterfeits of them, are the true aims and sum of living. If the Bible is rejected and its teachings are rooted out of the consciousness of men, then agnosticism, in stead of faith, and anarchy, instead of author ity and law, are inevitable substitutes.. When the Bible goes down the “Red Flag” goes up. Repeal the Ten Commandments and the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, and you leave society at the mercy of a seafull of moral privateers. Statesmanship is never so short-sighted as when it hedges against the Bible, one of whose constantly reiterated doc trines is respect for magistrates and adminis trative authority. And labor and industry are nothing else than purblind, when they tol erate indictments against that volume, whose chief theme and inspiration are the life, the words and the deeds of Jesus the carpenter. The Gideons Stand by the Book. It is a reassuring reflection to us that, as members o| the Order of Gideons, we have committed ourselves especially to the task of promoting reverence for the Scriptures, and to this end have busied ourselves in putting the Bible in the way of those men whose active habits of business and thought mark them as (Continued on Page 4.) ONE DOLLAR AND FIFTY CENTS A YEAR :: FIVE CENTS A COPY