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6 w HOSOEVER is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he can not sin because he is born of God.” I John 3:9. ♦ * * Every man who believes in revealed religion should be willing, nay glad, to know and re ceive its highest truth. The man who receives that highest truth should be passionately anxi ous to attain to its utmost fulness and realize its divinest fact. Here is an inspired statement which sums up the ultimate facts of religion as a spiritual experience—the possibility of bringing into the soul a power which will give it personal and complete victory over sin. The lust for power is a world disease. There is the lust for imperial power, which has en gulfed the world in terrible war. There is the lust for commercial and financial pow'er, scarcely less terrible in its consequences than war. There is also the lust for social power, embodying the follies and selfishness of mis guided generations, as there is, at last, the lust for intellectual po-wer—“The sin by which the angels fell?” It is all a power of the earth earthy. But there is a power after w T hich the soul may thirst with boundless passion, and be ever only more blameless as the flame of desire deep ens in the candle socket of life. It is thirst after that hidden power of the Spirit which makes the soul likest unto God and arms it against the destroyer, sin. Two stages of the emergence and growth of this power in the soul are indicated in our Scripture text, namely, the stage of birth and the stage of growth into spiritual consciousness and activity. The sweetly simple theology of the Book is, that when a soul is born of the Spirit its sins are not only forgiven, but purged Great Anti-Saloon League to Meet in Atlantic City AM the sworn, eternal and uncompromis ing enemy of the liquor traffic.” declared Dr. William A. Sunday recently in Phila delphia. His call to the men of that city g is the call of temperance workers everywhere to the men and women of our country: “Stand by me,’’ he pleaded, "in my fight for your homes, your families and your decency. The saloon is doomed; the anti-saloon sentiment already holds the bal ance of power in the United States. In God’s good time we are going to sing ‘My Country, ’Tis of Thee,’ and there wouldn’t be a saloon in it. We might as well try to dam Niagara Falls with tooth picks as to try to stem the great tide of temper ance reform that is sweeping our country.” The great American Anti-Saloon League Conven tion, which is to be held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, July 6th to 9th, is arousing much interest throughout our land. The five hundred hotels of that city are preparing for a vast army of not less than twenty-five thousand temperance enthusiasts who are expected to be present. Prof. E. O. Ex ceil, the popular choir leader, will have charge of the music. The Hon. John G. Woolley, Hon. Mal colm R. Patterson, Major Dan Morgan Smith, Sam Small and many other widely known men, will be among the speakers. Encouraging reports are be ing received almost every day of the progress of prohibition. The Alabama prohibition law becomes effective July 1, 1915; and on January 1, 1916, Arkansas, A BIRTH TO POWER By Rev. H. M. Du Bose, D. D. Pastor First Methodist Church, Atlanta. THE GOLDEN AGE away. The stage which follows, being a life out of that birth, is also one purged by the Spirit, and therefore should be without sin. The significant word, “seed,” which is here given as the reason for the sinless faith of the regenerated soul is none other than a name for the life of the Spirit of God, which remains in the soul both as the destroyer of sin and the creator of righteousness. There are two Scrip tures that recapitulate this doctrine of the birth and life power of the Spirit-born. The first is: “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The other is: “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have felloAvship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” To escape sin, confession must be made; to continually escape, the soul must walk in the light of confession. The Christian life begins in a birth to spir itual power. This is the power of a renewed mind. The new' brth is a. birth into new thoughts. There is the story of the daughter of a Scottish laird who. born in a home in which there was only, coldness, wealth and lack of love, went once to the home of a peas ant, and finding there love and unselfishness mixed with poverty, left her proud ancestral home and went to live with the peasants. She was happy there because she had learned to think new thoughts of the life within. A maximite shell has in it enough explosive force to destroy a ship or raze a fort, but you might pave the streets with maximite shells and drive over them the most heavily loaded wagons without danger. But when one of them is fired from a cannon charged with two hundred weight of powder its explosive power is let loose. It is so with the mind. When left to its Idaho and lowa will have state-wide prohibition, which will make a total of eighteen prohibition states. On March Ist, Governor Hammond signed the county option bill recently passed by the Min nesota legislature. The law becomes effective im mediately. It is also cause for boundless gratitude that prominent men once committed to the liquor inter ests, are now seeing their duty with clearer vis ion and are bravely working for a saloonless na tion. Major Dan Morgan Smith, of Chicago, is a notable illustration of this. Although never per sonally addicted to the use of strong drink, yet he was for several years the able general counsel of the Model License League. He is now a zealous advocate of temperance, and thus writes: “Argu ments that once seemed so plausible have failed me! for the foundation of my faith and the cor ner-stone of my arguments was the failure of reg ulation and the success of prohibition. My faith is gone, and my corner-stone is displaced; my struc ture has fallen, and it remains for me to help build another, founded on a new faith, with a corner stone as enduring as the truth, and that faith sha'l be .called Temperance, and the corner-stone shall be Annihilation. I shall never make another speech in behalf of the Model License League. I am through with the wet side. My intelligence insists up it; my conscience demands it.” Major Smith is now under contract with the National Anti-Sa loon League as one of its regular national cam- By Allan Sutherland. selfish, fleshly ends it is menial and impotent. Pleasure and commerce use it as a servant, but when the power of the Holy Ghost enswathes it, it becomes, in explosion, a dynamic that shakes the world. This is a birth into the power of renewed af fections. A Mohammedan asked a Christian: “Do you believe that Jesus can forgive sins, and that he will forgive the sin of every one who asks him?” “I do,” was the Christian’s answer. “Well, then,” returned the Mohammedan, he will conquer the world, for he will finally have the love of every heart.” The crowning truth of the gospel life is not only that it begins in a spiritual birth, but that it continues forever in an experience of spiritual power. This life is the power of discernment against sin. The world’s religious experience breaks down at this point. Men and women do not desire to know truly and convincingly what is evil, as against what is true and good. Comr promise is at the bottom of the world’s spirit ual breakdown. The failure to know, the wish not to know, is the manifest of tragic weak ness. Self-imposed ignorance is the deadliest of sins. This life of conscious power in spiritual w r alk is victory over sin. Can men live without sin? If Christian men do not. so live, it is no proof that such a life is not possible. If the soul can accomplish one moment, one hour, with out sin, then it may live whole days of such consistency, ay, a. lifetime. It is the ideal, the demand, of the gospel. The sum of all this is the power of attained holiness. Is there not on earth a perfect day for the disciple, that he niav be as his Lord? paign speakers. He recently made a great plea for temperance before an audience of not less than seven thousand in Texas. His first address in be half of temperance was delivered at the Ohio State Convention of the Anti-Saloon League. It wi 1 be recalled that five hundred and four thousand votes were cast last fall in Ohio for prohibition after only ninety days’ work This was the larg est number of prohibition votes ever cast in any one state. Senator Albert B. Cummins, of lowa, who is spoken of as a candidate for president on the Re publican ticket, has announced his platform, in which the fourth plank is: “The saloon must go! Sobriety must be the rule of conduct for the fu ture” He is the first man prominently considered as a presidential possibility in a dominant party, who has declared himself for nation-wide prohibi tion. With such leaders, with our hope in God, with a great nation to be saved from the curse of rum. surely we too should heed the command given of old to Jushua: “Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” All persons shall be recognized as delegates who are appointed by local church, Sunday school, Gid eons. Young People’s Societies, Temperance Or ganizations, W. C. T. U., Y. W. C. A., and Y. M. (Continued on page 15.) April 22, 1915