Newspaper Page Text
6
When the world was still about them,
And the violet dusk was deep,
On the hills of far Judea
The shepherds lay asleep.
But, 0, the startled wonder,
The waking, mute surprise,
When burst the sudden music
From out the riven skies.
When from the flaming glory
Os ramparts far above,
An angel leaned resplendent
And sang the song of Love;
When through the golden splendor
That swept its way along,
A host of shining angels
Flashed forth to join the song.
“0, earth, in David’s city
Is born to you today
A King of Kings—a Savior!”
Rang out the wondrous lay.
Journalistic Somersaults and Society Mis-Steps
As Viewed From the Mountain Tops
The Golden Age reaches this Atlanta tem
porarily exiled to a mountain health resort, on
Saturday, so that it is an after-supper treat —
a very good ‘ 1 grace” previous to stepping out
of the window to my bed on the long upper
veranda. It needs a bracer of one’s courage
to sleep out here at an altitude of 2260 feet,
with the winds howling at you from the tops
of Black Rock, Pinnacle and Screamer.
The last Golden Age that has reached me
was fine, particularly the splendid Upshaw edi
torial, “The Georgian Runs Amuck —Declares
Drink Does Not Cause Poverty.” It stirred
the blood like a trumpet blast.
Strange that any one should contend that
drink —which throttles energy and ambition —
does not result in poverty. Gladstone —Eng-
land’s great premier and uncrowned king—de
clared, “Give me but the money spent for
liquor and I will have all the revenue for Eng
land’s expenses.”
I have seen in real life many a tragedy caus
ed by drinking, and in not a single instance
was the drinker poor— when he began drink
ing, but he was always poor after he became a
drunkard.
By the way, who is the erratic writer of The
Georgian’s editorials? Surely not John Tem
ple Graves, who in The Georgian’s better days,
wrote that classic “Blasting at the Rock of
Ages.” In that editorial he protested against
the license which is running riot in the class
rooms of our American universities. He said:
“In hundreds of class-rooms there is a scholar
ly repudiation of all solemn authority. It is
taught daily that ‘the decalogue is no more
sacred, than a syllabus,’ that ‘the home, as an
institution, is doomed,’ that ‘immorality is
merely an act in contradiction of society’s ac
cepted standards,’ that ‘democracy is a fail
ure and the Declaration of Independence only
spectacular rhetoric,’ that ‘wide stairways are
open between social walls, but that to the climb
er, two children are encumberances,’ that ‘there
can be, and are, holier alliances outside the
marriage bond than within it.’ ”
These quoted sentiments are from the spoken
or written words of some leading professors
in Yale, Harvard, Princeton, University of
Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Columbia,
THE ANGEL SONG
By LEILA MAE WILSON.
The Golden Age for January 2, 1913.
“Good-will on earth,” they chanted,
“Peace and good-will to men!”
And never sweeter message
Has thrilled the world since then.
And earth still hears the music,
The deathless, angel song,
And souls of men are quickened
As the message sweeps along.
And ever adown the ages
Its magic fills with peace
The waiting world, for never
Will the wondrous carol cease!
Opelika, Ala., December 25, 1912.
(*This exquisite poem reached the
office just as the last page-proof of the
Christmas issue had been read, but it is
too good to keep for a whole year—and
we let it spread the real Christmas spirit
throughout the New Year number. —Edi-
tor.)
California, George Washington, William and
Mary, Cornell, Leland Stanford, etc.
If I had a son in one of these colleges, and
I heard that such doctrines were being fed to
him out of the irreverent lips of uninspired
thinkers, I would put my hat on my head and
walk up to the chancellor’s office of that uni
versity and demand, on behalf of my son, and
of the sons of American citizens, that these in
tellectual banditti of the class-room should
practice their license of opinion upon the Sun
Rise Clubs, or the Free Thought Societies to
which they belong, or ought to belong, and to
leave unstained to tender minds those old, hon
ored and orthodox creeds by which American
fathers and mothers for over one hundred
years, have led their children up to the honor
of the American home, and to the responsibility
of the American citizen.
This whole editorial, which is before me, ap
peared in The Georgian, May 3, 1909.
Yet The Georgian is now the paper which, as
told in The Golden Age, displayed on the front
page large, shameful pictures of real men and
women in each other’s embrace, “doing” cer
tain new steps at the Elks’ ball —pictures that
were “sensual” in their influence upon the
young boys and girls who saw them.
I did not see the picture to which you refer,
but I saw one —it was dancers for the same
Elks’ ball —of four girls “doing” their steps
for this affair, and their attitudes were so im
modest that I was shocked.
If they had been vaudeville stars —Evelyn
Thaws —it would have been bad enough to have
thrust these pictures in a daily newspaper upon
people who do not attend vaudeville shows.
But it was worse because these pictures were
of young girls coming from quiet homes. Where
were their mothers? Did they know that their
daughters were displaying themselves in this
vulgar way?
At any rate, the public has a right to pro
test. There is contagion in example. The fact
that some girls do these things accustoms the
public to such indelicacy, and will, if unre
buked, certainly be followed by similar dis
plays. Every girl who participates in such
dances lowers the standard of womanhood and
lessens her influence for good.
JULIA O’KEEFE NELSON.
MOTHER’S VOICE.
Caleb A. Ridley.
All day long and half the night,
In the city’s whirl I press the fight
’Till soul and body tires;
The thankless throng with little care
That I am here or anywhere,
Just fans the inward fires.
It makes one yearn for rural life,
But then I’d long for the battle’s strife
Where conflicts never cease;
In the midst of worry to stop and think —
From the limpid fount of the Past to drink
Somehow brings surcease.
Last night as sleep my soul released,
And from the strain the body ceased
I dreamed of childhood’s days;
I saw the face of old-time friends
And waded again my mountain glens
Along old familiar ways.
And while I dreamed I heard a song—
Caught every word as it drifted on,
And marked the one from the other;
In accents sweet and clear and true,
The witchery thrilled me thru and thru
For the voice was the Voice of Mother.
A new world flashed before my eyes
With golden bars across the skies
And star-gleams everywhere.
I heard the nightingale’s vesper hymn,
And watched the shadows on leaf and limb
’Till life lost every care.
Bare-foot boyhood filled me again,
I feel it now as I felt it then
Tingling to finger-tip ;
I saw the “spring house” by the spring
And the jars of milk I used to bring,—■
Two at every trip.
Across the creek were the apple trees,
And in my dreams I heard the bees
A humming away their hum;
And then a voice enriched by tears
That sweeter grows thru all the years,
Says: “Well, my Laddie’s come.”
Bowed with the burdens of mother and wife
She had humbly lived her humble life,
With we children on her heart;
The years lay heavily across her face,
And lines of sorrow the shadows traced
Where pain had worked its way.
Then the Night passed on to Noon,
Her face was rosed with heaven’s bloom
And eternal Spring.
At last she’d found the Land of Health,
Surrounded by luxurious wealth,
Where all forever sing.
+ + *
OLD AGE “REVELS IN THE GOLDEN
AGE.”
Rev. Robert L. Motley, the cultured and be
loved educational secretary of the Baptist
Mission Bohrd, of Nashville, Tenn., says: “I
am sending $1.50 to renew the subscription of
our honored and venerable friend, Mrs. Neppie
Bond, of Nashville. She is 83 years old is
unable to get out and do much else but read,
and she fairly revels in The Golden Age. She
thinks it the greatest paper in all the land.”
“Esther Ferrell’s Experiment”
By Mrs* O. S. Payne, beautifully bound
in white and gold, only sl.lO postpaid* :
Address, 814 Austell Bldg., Atlanta, Gs,