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BARACAS BANQUET IN ATLANTA
NEW KIMBALL HOUSE THE SCENE OF AN INSPIRING GATHERING OF CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN.
NOTABLE SPEECH BY DR. E. M. POTEAT.
T
IHE annual banquet of the Atlanta Ba
raca Union, which was held at the
I Kimball House on Friday night, March
21st, was a live-wire affair from start
to finish.
The breakfast room of the New Kimball was
filled with enterprising Baracas and Philatheas
(for a Baraca without a Philathea is like a
thorn without a rose), and all things went
“merry as a marriage bell.”
After the dinner, President J. L. Womack
surprised everybody with a graceful, beautiful
speech. We knew him as a loyal Baraca and
an up-to-date young business man, but we did
not know that he could sprinkle star-dust in
our eyes and scatter the flowers of rhetoric
at our feet.
There is such a thing as genius in an an
nouncement, and before the regular speakers
began Rev. J. W. Long, of Cartersville, caught
the crowd with a breezy announcement of the
next State Convention of Baracas to be held
in Athens in June. (
Belk Grows Poetic.
The first speaker on the program was Dr.
S. R. Belk, the brilliant and popular pastor
of Park Street Methodist church, Atlanta. He
was introduced by the toastmaster, William D.
Upshaw, as a “Methodist who had failed to
live up to the privilege of a cardinal Methodist
doctrine —that of ‘falling from grace’—for if
he had fallen he would not have been allowed
to be filling his second successive pastorate in
Atlanta.” Dr. Belk spoke on “The Value of
Purpose and Sunshine in the Lives of Young
‘Christians’ ’and closed with a humorous origi
nal poem which brought down the house.
POTEAT’S POWERFUL ADDRESS.
(Continued from page 2.)
creates wealth and it makes the wealth wealth !
Third. The third contributor to every pri
vate fortune is the individual; but when we
have substracted God’s contribution and so
ciety’s contribution it is seen that the indi
vidual’s contribution is very small indeed. He
contributes far-sight and industry, and, in
general, he makes use of God’s gifts to him.
The Perils of Wealth.
When we have thus analyzed the produc
tion of wealth we are prepared to understand
the perils of wealth. It is extremely difficult
for the man who is engaged in amassing wealth
to realize how small a contribution he is mak
ing to what he calls his success. According
ly, he will pass through the anxieties, the am
bitions, and the absorption in the delights
which his money can purchase, on to all the
vices which attend the luxury. If, on the other
hand, his character is of another type he will
grow mean and sordid and grasping, like the
man who said to me once, “The more I have
the meaner I feel.” Miser needs only one let
ter added to make it misery! These are some
of the perils to the individual, but there are
larger perils to society.
In Froude’s Julius Caesar, there is a picture
of the Roman world at the beginning of the
Christian Era, and a little later. “It was
an age of material progress and material civi
lization. The rich were extravagant, for life
had ceased to have practical interests, except
The Golden Age for March 27, 1913
Hon. James L. Mayson, Atlanta’s fearless
city attorney, followed with a brief but beauti
ful tribute to woman and a “dandy” story
which ran over the toastmaster and mashed him
out flat.
Hon. Marion Jackson, of “The Men and Re
ligion Forward Movement,” was in a hilar
ious mood, refusing to make a speech on any
subject and declaring after one or two side
splitting istories that he was such a friend to
the banqueters that he was determined to give
his time to the speaker from a distance, Dr.
E. M. Poteat.
Judge Lumpkin Presents Bible.
Judge Joseph Henry Lumpkin, the genial,
golden-hearted bachelor member of the su
preme court of Georgia, came in for some
good-humored raillery at the expense of his
lonely estate. The toastmaster declared his
profound sympathy for a man in such high,
position who knew nothing of the b.iss of the
young lover who:
“Told a shy maid of his love,
The color left her cheeks;
But on the shoulders of his coat
It showed for several weeks.”
The toastmaster further declared that the
very presence of Judge Lumpkin had inspired
\he following impromptu tribute:
I never meet him on the street,
And catch his winsome smile
But that I want to hug his neck
Or walk with him a mile.
After Judge Lumpkin had been presented
as the “Sir Galahad of the Georgia Bar,” he
made a brief but eloquent address on the worth
of heroic Christian young manhood and wom
anhood to the state of Georgia and the
for its material pleasures. The occupation of
the higher classes was to obtain money with
the liberty to spend it in idle enjoyment. The
high society of Rome had become a society of
beautiful animals with an enormous appetite
for Wealth poured in more and
more, and luxury grew more unbounded. Pal
aces sprang up in the city, castles in the coun
try, villas at pleasant places by the sea, and
parks and fish ponds and game preserves and
gardens and vast retinues of servants. Money!
the cry w’as still money! Money was the one
thought from the highest senator to the poor
est wretch who sold his vote in the Comitia.
For money, judges gave unjust decrees, and
juries gave corrupt verdicts. Governors held
their provinces for one, two or three years;
they went out bankrupt from extravagance,
they returned with millions for fresh riot.”
In such a time as that it needed no prophet
to tell that Rome was on her way to ruin and
that the destruction of the Eternal City was
only a question of time. Byron has told the
whole story in these lines:
“Here is the moral of all human tales,
’Tis but the same rehearsal of the past;
First freedom, then glory, when that fads,
Wealth, vice, corruption ,barbarism at last.
And history, w T ith all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page.”
These perils to the individual and to so
ciety can only be averted by our learning
to practice right principles as to the use of
wealth.
world, and offered “the handsomest Bible he
could find in Atlanta” to the best Bible stu
dent among the Baracas —this prize to be pre
sented at the annual banquet next year.
POTEAT ON THE BIBLE.
The last speaker of the evening was Presi
dent E. M. Poteat of Furman University. His
theme was “The Bible in Everyday Life.”
He spoke of “The Bible on the Shelf,” “The
Bible in the Crucible,” and “The Bible in Daily
Living,” and only those who have heard E. M.
Poteat can understand how he gripped and
stirred and blessed those stalwart young peo
ple. Dr. Poteat made a suggestion that will
make history in the Baraca Union of Atlanta.
He told of seeing three thousand men —Bible
students, in Richmond, parade the streets of
Virginia’s capital before entering the great au
ditorium for an address on The Bible by a
prominent Christian lawyer, and urged that the
banquet of next year be preceded by such a
feature as would profoundly impress the whole
city of Atlanta. Dr. Poteat was called on to
lead the banqueters in a closing prayer, ask
ing God to make The Bible more vital in their
lives.
The officers of the Atlanta Baraca Union
are as follows: President, J. L. Womack; vice
presidents, Louis Worrell, F. 11. Camp, R. 11.
Ho'lingsworth, J. D. Spangler; field secretary,
J. S. Hill; corresponding secretary, W. G.
Marks; secording secretary, W. H. Fitzpatrick ;
treasurer, L. T. Twedell; press reporter, S. J,
Wilkinson; chorister, J. R. Walraven. * q
The Kimball House banquet put the Atlanta
Baracas on their mettle and they plan to “take
the city” the coming year and press the bat
tle to the “religious beyond.”
CAMPBELL MORGAN’S PROVERBS.
When Jesus said “If he will not hear thee,
take one or two with you.” He meant to say,
“Be slow to make your brother’s sin public.”
* * *
When He said, “Let him be to thee as a
heathen man and a publican.” He would have
them remember that He died for heathen —so
you should love your erring brother —maybe
your enemy, well enough to die for them.
* # #
The “excuses” that kept men from accept
ing the invitation teach the possible sin of
legitimate things.
# * #
“Whenever a man resigns from anything,
accept his resignation.”
# # *
9,700 of Gideon’s men took unnecessary time
to do a necessary thing.
* * #
You can find an excuse but not a reason
for not entering the Kingdom of God.
* * «
Dr. Len G. Broughton said: “As I studied
this text about Jesus healing the blind man, by
and by I saw not a text, but Jesus!” I tell
you, brethren, when you see Jesus in the text
you can preach. And without Him you can
not preach —you can “orate,” but “orating”
is not preaching.
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