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WHOLESOME WORK OF THE CIVIC LEAGUE.
SECRETARY NICHOLSON ISSUES STRONG CALL TO ENLIST IN ITS ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP.
THE GOLDEN AGE GIVES HEARTY ENDORSEMENT.
By SECRETARY NICHOLSON.
REAT progress is being made along
i-many lines; and manifold blessings are
vouchsafed unto us. At the same time,
there is much unrest and discontent
and good citizens, Christian patriots, are view
ing with anxious concern the great and grow
ing evils of the day.
Commercialism has in great measure sup
planted patriotism and home and civic duties.
Statecraft has been abandoned for big business,
and too many men have devoted all their time
to their business and left politics to those who
make politics a trade.
Private duties and public duties run in paral
lel lines—he that sins against the one does in
jury to himself—he that falters in the other
does injury to the common welfare.
AV e are daily astounded by the number of
men who break under moral tests. The two
great commandments, on which hang all the
law and the prophets, are disregarded. The
number of faithless and corrupt legislators, the
constant presence of investigating committees,
widespread graft, and the too general absence
of rectitude lead to the conclusion that there is
somewhere a vital task that has not yet been
performed.
Secular education has receivel undue empha
sis, colleges and universities do not primarily
make Christian men and women. The public
schools, so far as teaching the Bible and Chris
tian morality are concerned, are a failure. We
cannot depend upon them as they are now con
ducted to inculcate either individual or na
tional righteousness.
The churches and evangelistic movements
are reaching many adults, as well as a large
number of the children and youths; but there
are millions who do not regularly attend
tj T N the long twilight of late June a lonely
L A 1 pedestrian was making his way along a
wooded road. He was not especially
prepossesisng and the people who had
met him on the way had drawn a little farther
to the side of the road.
The young man noticed it and shrugged his
shoulders. “The priest and the Levite over
again,” he muttered. “Yes, I have fallen
among thieves. Where is my good Samari
tan?”
To Alaric Waitland at that moment the
world about him w’as as chaos. The physical
seemed to have dominated the moral; his
thoughts were wilder, more undisciplined, than
the rest of him.
Why had the world treated him so? Why
had his efforts for good, for advancement, for
success in his chosen calling all proved so
vain? Had he not been more sinned against
than sinning? He stopped to lean his head
against an electric light post. Over in the dis
tance sparkled the river; it looked peaceful,
so much more peaceful than he felt. Was it
worth while struggling on when he could stop
it all? Stop it? What was there afterwards?
If his earthly father had seemed so unjust, was
there ]*ope of more mercy from his heavenly
one?
church or Sunday school, and other millions
are scarcely touched at all. Throughout the
country the home has been steadily under
mined; parental teaching and training have
sadly waned; and divorces and the social evil
are increasing at an alarming rate.
Many cities have been misgoverned, many
are in a filthy and unsanitary condition; and
in city, state and nation there has been much
unwise legislation and increasing disobedience
and disrespect for law
Hydra-headed scepticism, sin and suffering
are abroad in the land. Licentiousness and
general lawlessness abound; debauchery, Sab
bath desecration, gambling, cheating, swind
ling and dishonesty of many sorts are found
on every hand. Homicides and suicides, avoid
able accidents and disasters, crime and insan
ity are ever on the increase, and prisons and
asylums are often crowded beyond their ca
pacity.
While plenty is hanging on the boughs of
our so-called civilization, there is much desti
tution and suffering; the cost of living is high,
and the tension of modern life is destructive
of health, happiness and life itself.
While we are nominally a Christian nation
we are rapidly becoming a nation of Sabbath
breakers, non-church-goers, profane swearers
and intemperate users of intoxicating bever
ages. The banishment of the Bible from the
public schools, and the absence of Bible read
ing and Christian teaching in such a large
number of the nation’s homes, are giving us a
class of boys and girls and young people who
have no consciousness of God and divine au
thority, or of the danger and hideousness of
sin, and no clear conception of the plan of
salvation and emancipation from sin.
HUSKS- -by Marion S. Wonson
He dropped his head wearily. Had it all
been his fault? His ideas of right and wrong
seemed hopelessly confused. He had tried to
be true to himself once, he had been true
for the eighteen years before he left home.
Was it all lost? He had loved his father once,
loved him with the unreasoning affection of a
little child. He had found it true that when
one loves the lack of understanding is hardest
to bear. He hadn’t realized at first that his
father didn’t understand. There had been his
mother then and others seem to understand in
stinctively.
A boy’s future meant so much, a young man’s
future, for he had felt himself a man when
the misunderstanding came. Why had his
father so objected to his studying art —art with
a capital letter? It was a holy thing to Alaric
Waitland; he couldn’t make business seem im
portant beside it. He felt that a voice was call
ing him to take up his brush and paint his vis
ion of the ideal; and to his father there was
no ideal, no vision.
Alaric was the only son. It had been a
foregone conclusion in his father’s mind that
the son would follow in the father’s footsteps
in a business career. Even college seemed non
sense; he needed only what should fit him
for necessary things. College had too much
The Golden Age for May 22, 1913.
It is important to remember that “the na
tions that forget God shall be turned into de
struction,” and that “righteousness exalteth a
nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
The situation should be faced both conscien
tiously and heroically by the leaders of Chris
tian thought and activity. The hour is here
when all Christians should render the largest
possible service in the conversion of sinners,
in reaching the children and youth of our
land, and in the saving and uplifting, of the
community and nation. *
The Gospel of Christ the Only Means of
Escape.
Briefly stated, some of the aims of the Civic
League of America are: To promote good
citizenship, healthy public sentiment, right
eous civil government, loyal personal service,
sound morality, and the Common Welfare.
Believing that the Christian religion furnish
es the only way for true and lasting solution
of many so-called “problems of the day,” and
that the Gospel can and will correct everything
that needs correcting, The Civic League of
America has “one vital organic thought, one
absorbing purpose, one undying enthusiasm.
It is that Christ shall be this world’s king—
king of its courts, its legislatures, its execu
tives; king of its schools and colleges; king
of its commerce and constitutions—Christ and
his law of love, the true basis of government
and the supreme authority in national as in
individual life.”
It is designed that this work shall be car
ried on through conferences and conventions;
through pamphlets and bulletins; through field
secretaries, and the distinguished body of
men upon whom the league will be able tQ
(Continued on page 13.)
idealism about it. The world needed strong*
self-sufficient, well trained business men. If his
son had dreams of creating a masterpiece that
should call the world to do him honor, they
should be nipped in the bud at once. There
was already quite enough of painting, of stat
uary; it would be sheer waste of himself to
let the boy do as he chose. Some day in the
future he would look back and thank him
for his part in this turning point.
What Mr. Waitland had not said of this he
had implied. Alaric had not been stupid in un
derstanding his father’s point of view when
his eyes were once opened. Even the fact that
it cut so deep made him quick to understand.
His father couldn’t have known how it cut.
The son had lain awake until daybreak, think
ing it over; the father had said good-night
cheerfully and had apparently slept as well as
usual.
Alaric Waitland had not made any decis
ions that night. He had ignored the subject
next morning and for several mornings after
ward. Then at last he exploded the bomb
shell without warning. If his father persisted
in his fitting himself for a business career, he
would rather leave home and take his future
into his own hands.
(Continued on page 8.)
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