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BROUGHTON LEADS MACON REVIVAL
FAMOUS LONDON-AMERICAN PREACHER IS INTRODUCED BY DR. J. L. WHITE, HIS OLD WAKE FOREST SCHOOL MATE—
j , "MORE RELIGION AND LESS MACHINERY,” SLOGAN OF AUDITORIUM MEETING.
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Tis a great thing—a picture of old-time
naturalness, to see Len G. Broughton
and J. L. White yoked up together
again—and that is what we are seeing
in Macon, tlic “Central City” of Georgia, this
week. -
During the Atlanta Bible Conference last
spring, Dr. White, who had but recently re
turned to Macon as pastor of he Vineville
Avenue Baptist church, wired Dr. Broughton
to come to Macon in September for a week’s
preaching at the City Auditorium.
Now Broughton loves his old Wake Forest
schoolmate so well that J. L. White generally
gets whatever he asks of Broughton.
And as for me, the opportunity for a few
days of fellowship and inspiration, with the
pulpit editor of The Go’den Age who has been
my unselfish friend for years, was such a
wholesome temptation that I was ■« ready to
yield—T was like the old woman in Carroll
couniy said about going back to live with
her husband after they had been separated:
”1 was mighty glad to get the chance.”
Tin* Baptist churches of Macon are all unit
ing and Clnistian leaders of other denomina- f
tions a; e beautifully co-operating in the meet
ings. ’ * J
■ ' .. : .
jMr
Dr. Len G. Broughton.
Sunday. morning Dr. Broughton and I wor
shiped at Vineville Avenue church, and heard
a force fir, heart moving sermon from Dr. J.
L -.White on “Constraining People to Come;
In” i •
Dr. Broughton’s crowds Sunday afternoon
and night were magnificent, and with old-time
persuasive power he sought to have every
Christian before him realize that he—not an
other--that he himself was sent of God to ’win
the lost.
Comments are heard on every side: “He
is the same Broughton we used to love over
here; but he is different, somehow. He looks
so much stouter and he seems so desperately
in earnest. Broughton was always in earnest,
but now religion is his one passion.”
Dr. J .L. White said: “We have come to
this down-town auditorium to reach every
body. Everybody ought to go to church—but
everybody won’t. Some folks have a ‘kink’
in their head about going to church; they will
go to a tent or an auditorium like this when
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF SEPT. U
they won’t go to a church. But when they
get religiou or religion gets them, then they
wil! love the house of God.”
An Automobile Parade.
Dr. White went on: “People have heard
about this meeting, but they will hear about
it some more. I want us to have an automobile
parade Monday afternoon with music and ban
ners to attract the crowd that seldom goes to
church. ’ ’
And the parade came off. And I’ll tell you,
people, it was a touching, inspiring sight to
look on a man of J. L. White’s culture and
prominence leading an automobile parade
where the drumbeat caled the careless crowd
to “stop, look and listen! and come to the
Broughton meetings day and night this week.”
Verily, enterprise and spiritual energy and not
starch and “dignity”—l mean artic dignity,
are winners in-the kingdom’s cnoquering work.
“ Not a Political Meeting. ’ ’
• “I have heard many questions,” said Dr.
White, “concerning the /why’ of this evange
listic campaign right now while a hot political
emapaign is on. Well, people need religion
all the time; but our distinguished brother
k from London who used to condemn spiirtual
and political wickedness in high places, has
i not been invited here to take part in politics]
t There are no strings on him and there is no
; telling what he will please to say before he
i gets through next Friday night, but he has
I been invited especially to lead Christians to a
higher plane of living and to help us win loss
i men to Christ.” I
* * i
“Amen!” said several unctions voices and a
spirit of deep reverence fed on the great audi
ence.
“Only One Thing Fit to Tie To.”
»
My brethren and friends,” began Dr.
Borughton. “it gives me great personal pleas}
ure to be back home, but let me emphasize
in this opening service what Dr. White has
just stated that I did not come here to spec
ialize on side issues. The longer I live and
the more I see of suffering, sinning humanity,
the more I am convinced that there is only one
thing fit to tie to in this world, and that is
1 old-time religion. ’
“If a man gets rightly related to God, he
’ will put himself in right relation to his fellow
man, his municipality, yea to everything and
everybody.”
“So I came here, not to jump into your lo
cal affairs, but to preach the old-time gospel
of Jesus Christ who saved me when I was a
poor lost boy in North Carolina. I have not
lost one whit of my conviction that it is a
Christian man’s duty to keep his conscience on
top and do his full duty as an aggressive citi
zen, but the longer I live and the more I see
sin and crime defying our laws the more I am
convinced that God in the heart must be the
basis of our laws, our civic progress and our
truest civilization. ’’
Not Enough Religion to “Grunt.”
“I believe in religion that expresses itself—
some people haven’t got enough religion to
even grunt—but there are times when the
Lord says: ‘Be still —stop shouting, and let me
speak to your heart and conscience—let me
give you a love-motive, a spiritual dynamic
that wi’l send you out into the world to do
By WM. D. UPSHAW, Editor.
that thing for which my Father sent me—to
give yourself in love, in labor, in personal
sacrifice to lift the lost out of the mire of sin
up to God ” -. 4
Dargan’s Poem of Introduction.
You ought to have heard Dr. E. C. Dargan’s
little speech presenting Dr. Broughton to that
overflowing crowd on Sunday night. He began
with his meeting Broughton on somebody’s
veranda in Virginia some seventeen years ago,
touched the high peaks of his acquaintance
with him since then in this country, followed
him to Rowland Hill’s historic pulpit, with a
world outlook in London and then threw him
at the hearts of that waiting, eager throng in
a positive prose poem of beauty and e oquence.
You should also have seen Jelks. the conse
crated young banker, lead that music. His
smile fairly rippled with music .and every
movement led to symphony and song.
Wooster Gathers “Broughtonian” Gems.
Breezy as the ocean and as refreshing quite,
there came to Macon for the Broughton meet
ings our old friend, Rollin C. Wooster, Yale
man, scholar, gentleman, preacher, philanthro
pist and genera’ hustler in the kingodm of
Dr. J. L. White.
God. When asked to gather some Brough
ton gems for The Golden Age, Wooster says:
“ After having been intimately associated
with Dr. L. G. Broughton for five years, and
after having been ordained to the Baptist min
istry at his hands and in his great church in
Atlanta, it was a genuine treat to hear him
again in Macon’s auditorium. I gathed ten
striking sentences in his glorious afternoon
sermon. Here they are:
“God has laid on my heart the common
place things. What I would love to bring
about by my preaching is a revival of relig
ion pure and undefiled.”
4 ‘lf you have any other object in life (speak
ing of automobiles, fine homes and business)
than to glorify God, you will find it to be a
curse instead of a blessing.”
“Christ’s shepherd-heart seems opposed to
the spirit of this age; where do you stand?
How many of you will go out and ’ove Macon
to Jesus?”
“When a human being comes to me and
tries to sell me a book telling how to save
; souls, I feel like buying all the books he has
(Continued on page 6.)