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Many good and strong things were said in be half of MISSIONS During the Session of the Southern Baptist Convention. Subscribe to and read the Chbistian Index, if you would keep informed. ESTABLISHED 1821. ®lw ffiltristiau Jndrs J. C. McMICHAEL, Proprietor. Organ of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia. Published Every Thursday at Atlanta, Ga. Subscription Price : One copy, one year $ 2.00 One copy, six months 1.00 One copy, three months 50 Obituaries.—One hundred words free of charge. For each extra word, one cent per worn, cash with copy. To Correspondents.—Do not use abrevia tions; be extra careful in writingproper na mes; W rite with ink, on one side of paper; Do not write copy intended for the editor and busi ness items on same shoot. Leave off personal ities; condense. Business.—Write all names, and post offices distinctly. In ordering a change give the old as well as the new address. The date of label indicates the time your subscription expires. If you do not wish it continued, order it stop ped a week before. We consider each sub scriber permanent, until he orders his paper discontinued. When you order it stopped pay up to date. Remittances by check preferred; or regis tered letter, money order, postal note. Bev. W. C. Bitting, of Brooklyn, happily phrases his cenception of some church members, whose mis sion seems to be to worry the pastor: /The Christian (?) cut bias.” If you would win the sinner to Christ, act on the principle that ev ery man has a better self to which you should appeal. Make your talks to this better self. Strike for the better side of a sinner’s nature. He has it and when you arc able to find it and can reach it, you are prepared to accomplish good results. In reference to the hue and cry against “Southern outrages,” the Standard, the able and generally tvery impartial Baptist organ of Chi cago, has this wise word: “There is a not unnatural tendency in the North to see this thing only on one side. Let us remember that if there are bad people with a white com plexion in that quarter, there are bad people, too, with skins of a dark er hue.” How many people are constantly in dread of what is to come. The forebodings of evil are far more pro ductive causes of trouble to them than ‘he actual troubles present up on them. Suppose Daniel had been of this turn of mind. He would limply have never been the Daniel he was. The horrors of being torn to pieces by wild beasts would have been more than he could have borne. Brother, sister, leave the future with God. He will take care of it and you too if you trust and ask him in the proper spirit so to do. ' There are advertisemente that in terest and entertain the reader. There are others that disgust, turn away the kindlier feelings. There are others that cause to follow a train of reflections. Such is one given by The Wine and Spirit Ga zette. That paper publishes a full page black picture representing Mr. Harrison and Mr. Blaine on a pub lic platform, at the right, and Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Hill at the left, with a Sun-headed man in the cen ter representing Sunnyside whiskey, and this motto above them all : “Five great men all true and tried, The greatest ot these is Sunny Side.” Rev. I. J. Lansing, in an address at Worcester, Mass., made a direct hit, when he asked if the Homan Catholic Church ever struck the sa loon as it has struck the common schools; when he asked, has that church ever threatened to take away the sacraments from the people who frequent saloons or sell liquor ? It has done that with the common schools and why not with the sa loons ? Do the Catholics hate free /zhools more than they do the sa - loons ? The speaker assumed that, if the Catholic Church had the pow er to protest against and smite the liquor curse and does not do it, it is because it is in sympathy with it in some way. It always affords us pleasure to look upou a pretty picture. Some times words are made into as beautiful pictures as any paint ing. Tho Sunday School Times gives such a picture in words. Restlessness may be a sign of fickle ness, or it may be a sign of constan cy. One may be restless from a lack of purpose and aim, turning hither and thither without any fix edness of thought or desire, now en joying one thing and now another, but never satisfied with any lot, or contented in any sphere. But one may also be restless from an un swerving and never varying aim and purpose, turning hither or thith- Sfte ffirfettan er, as the skilled navigator tacks and veers according to the hindrances of wind or tide, or to the tortuous windings of a shifting channel, in order to reach surely the one desti nation which is in his mind from first to last. I’here is the restless ness of the dead leaf stirred and tossed by every passing breeze with out even an instinct of aim or pur pose ; and there is the restlessness of the magnetic needle that quivers ceaselessly on its pivot, in its deter mination toward the pole in spite of a ll counter attractions and deflec. tions. Before we pass judgment on the restlessness of another’s life, let us be sure that that restlessness is not in itself a sign of constancy. “The tendency in this country is to concentrate municipal authority in a few hands, says Moorfield Sto rey in the June New England Maga zine. “In Glasgow and Birmingham the best results are achieved by en listing a large number of able citi zens and dividing the work among them, some taking charge of sewers, others of lights, others of water, etc. It makes little difference which sys tem prevails if only good men are induced to do the work. Make it in popular estimation as great a trib ute to a man’s business ability to make him an aiderman as it is to make him a director of a bank or railroad, and men will be glad to take positions in the city govern ment. Make it, as it is to-day, rath er a questionable distinction to be prominent in city politics, and ex cept the few whose public spirit leads them to do a disagreeable pub lic duty or whose ambition makes them take municipal office as the first step in public life, the men who hold city office will do neither their city nor themselves any credit. If your city officers are bad men we cannot have too few. Os aiderman or coun cilmen who intrigue for patronage or consider only what their votes or in fluence in the city legislature can be insdo to yiald, the fewer we the better, , ~ ' “Once persuade the people that the government of a city is a mere matter of business and induce them to treat it as such, and municipal re form is assured.” Advice to graduates, is as abun dant just now, as the fruit crop is all through Georgia. The commence ment orator deals it out, in liberal doses. The newspaper editor gives freely, notwithstanding the hot wave is reaching us. The commencement sermonizer puts a large chunk in every discourse. Rev. Joseph N. Blanchard, did not prove an excep tion in his baccalaureate sermon to the graduating class of the Univer sity of Pennsylvania. Men must meet in life a temper of mind which sets work above study, facts above ideals, which is disposed to value whatever a man has—his education, as well as other things, according to its market value. It can hardly be gainsaid that more than ever to-day are men led to gauge things by a commercial test. The banks, the factories, the ware-houses, the ship ping look to but one sort of value, that of dollars and cents. The great discoveries of the times, the multiplied inventions of the arts and sciences have opened up a field in which man’s activity is able to work wonders, which can be seen and handled, weighed in the balance and not found wanting. “But the young man cannot help being somewhat of an idealist, form ing plans which are and shall, we may be sure, be full of the tests of the market and the shop. Life to him lias a glorified, a divine side, in which he hopes to do something which cannot all bo expressed in a money value.” The idealist is the man with pow er, because he has the imagination to see the relation between facts. The business world of to-day, tho world of the market and shop never could be what it is if it were not for the student, the thinker, who has made steam and electricity to serve the purposes of trade, to bridge over oceans, to tunnel under mountains, to weld together the great capitals of humanity. The possibilities of the universal wealth of a country are de veloped by the brain and the hand of the man of ideas, who is the man of ideals. “You are a man, and you want to be a man, and you can look up to ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY. JUNE 30, 1892. Him who, whatever else He may be, is confessedly the highest type of manhood the world has known, and you find in Jesus Christ the assertion that the soul and God are the near est realities you can face. “May the visions of duty, right eousness and God go with you into the new world, your feet are to tread.” Written for The Index. THE JEWISH SABBATH. In approaching this subject, the first thing to do is to find the origin of the Jewish Sabbath. Our only guide in fixing its origin is the Mo saic Record. According to this reqerd, there is not the slightest evidence that there was a divinely appointed rest-day, for man, prior to the sojourn of Is rael in the wilderness of sin, between Elim and Sinai. It has already been shown, that .while Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden they did not need a rest day—that is, a Sab bath—hence there is no mention of a rest day for them. Afterwards, when they had sinned, and were ex pelled from the Garden, they went out from it, under the curse: “In the sweat ofthy face shalt thou eat bread.” These words fixed forever upon the human race, the necessity of labor. And they do not afford the slightest allusion to any occasional or stated respite from the effect of the curse. Admit that the weekly division of time was recognized at a very early period. Admit, moreover, as some writers indicate, that some nations did hold one day of the week, as a sort of holiday, or festive day, asso ciated more or less, with the worship of their Gods; there is not the least evidence that such days were of di vine appointment. They were mere ly human institutions, and devised not for rest, so much, as for carnal enjoyments; and these were often polluted with abandoned profligacy. Surely, such heathenish institutions, cannot, justly or fairly, be regarded as the causal antecedents of the Jew ’ish which'Wtw a real’ .inM tual rest day, while at the same time its most exalted idea was “Holiness to the Lord. Eor such a Sabbath, we must look for a higher origin than can be found in the fancies or passions of men. It must have had its origin in the appointment of God Himself. Now comes the question, when did God establish it ? The first mention of it in the Mo saic Record, is found in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus. As already stated the people of Israel were then in the wilderness between Elim and Sinai. They were suffering for bread, and it pleased God to give them “bread from Heaven.” But they were still under the curse pro nounced upon the race, at the garden of Eden. Hence God did not give them that bread in such away as to relieve them entirely from the neces sity of labor. In all the ages men had sighed and groaned under the curse: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” The Israelites especially had been slaves in Egypt. For more than two centuries, under Pharaohs “who knew not Joseph,’’ they had endured the oppressive bondage. During that long period of suffering, their cruel task-masters had allowed them no Sabbath day. When therefore they were set free, in the wilderness, no doubt, they ex ulted in the idea of rest. And when they found that God could give them quails in the evening, and manna in the morning they might have thought their days of labor were over. But not so. The manna was not given to them as loaves already prepared for the table. It was scat tered upon the ground as “hoar frost.” It was necessary to gather it early and prepare it for use, or else tho heat of the sun would molt it. Though God was working a miracle to supply their wants in tho wilderness, yet this modicum of labor, in gathering and preparing the food provided for them, would still remind them that they could not eat bread without, in some way, working for it. So the Lord com manded them to gather every morn ing, for five days, just what would suffice them for one day; but on the sixth day, they w'ero required to gather a double portion, that they might rest on the seventh day, which was called “tho rest of the holy Sab bath unto the Lord.” (see Exo. 10:22- 20) Right then and there, wo find the origin of the Jewish Sabbath. Not many days after God pro claimed, from Mt. Sinai, in the audi ence of all the people, the “ten com mandments.” Among them, we find the fourth commandment gives us a more full statement of the law of the Sabbath. (See Ex. 20:8-11.) This law gave to the Israelites and to the, stranger and to their cat tle, a rest .day from all labor. As such, it w?a a secular law designed to meet a manifest want of the peo ple, and to do them good, and only good through all their generations. A recent writer, whose name I can not just now recall, has suggested that among its ether purposes, the Sabbath may have been designed mercifully to mitigate in some degree tho curse which still rested upon the human race. And it certainly does mitigate this curse for all who rightly observe it. As a secular law it is applicable to all mankind,.for all men need it. It is therefore a legitimate subject of legislation for every human govern ment. But the fourth commandment is more than a mere secular law. It is invested with all the dignity that be longs to every law which comes to us directly from —<4ed- Himself. Among the few words which the Almighty has ever eondescended to utter, with an audible voice, to a hu man audience was tho fourth com mandment. Is it possible to con ceive any scene more solemn, more impressive, more sublime than was displayed, on that occasion, upon and around Mount Sinai ? The great God—the God, who said “let there be light” and there was light, who had bound the belt of Orion, estab lished the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and stretched the milky way far across the vast realms of space. That great God had come to sanctify to Himself a people, through whom He might bring all the nations of the earth within the teach of His loving mercy , through the great “vhem, ...v ju.r ■ aflMnfcd one. The purpose /< ns grand. It was well to signalize it with the won derful phenomena which attended iffi accomplishment. There were thun derings and lightenings ; there was on the mountain a smoke, as the smoke of a furnace; and the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the mountain trembled, and the people and Moses trembled. From out this scene of awful grandeur, rising above the roar of thunder, came the voice of God announcing Himself as the only living God, and the only Being whom it was lawful to wor ship, and stating in brief, but com prehensive terms, that moral law, which should bind the human con science to the end of time. With such object lessons as these did the Almighty vindicate His sovereign ty and the supremacy of His will, as the Law Gives of His intelligent crea tures. What an emphasis is thus given to every precept of the Deca logue I Then is it not true, that the fourth commandment was to the Jews, more than a secular enactment ? Besides all this, the fourth com mandment is distinguished by mak ing the Sabbath day a sign and memorial of God’s covenant with His people, a memorial of His resting from His own creative work, and also t most impressive type of that everlasting rest, which “remains for the people of God” in the world to come. And just at this point, it en ters into, and becomes connected with all tho consolations of tho Christian’s hope. Such was the Jewish Sabbath, in its origin, the mode of its institu tion, its design; and in its sacred as sociations and its prophetic symbol ism of a future life. To be continued. S. G. IIILLYER. Written for The Index. FROM ALABAMA. AN UNANTICIPATED CHAPTER AN APOCALYPTIC VISION.—WILL IT BE REALIZED. How delighted arc wo, w hose vis sion is not hedged in by mud walls to find, at last, one newspaper, print ed behind a levee, seeing and con fessing the fact that levees aggravate every calamity they are designed to remedy. We farmers of tho up lands have to deal with creeks that overflow anjj wo don’t build earthen walls to lift, up their channels and sides forever. Oh the contrary, be- ginning at the lower sides of our farms and at the mouths of these drains of a neighborhood, we “ditch them off.” We multiply and widen and deepen outlets. Wo don’t ac cept, practically, theories of “ero sion” which are only beautiful on paper and not written of God on the face of nature. Whenever wc divert tributaries of our great river from its surcharged channel, as I do “branches” that fill Magby’s creek to overflowing across my farm, we will prevent tho sub mergence of states, as I do that of modest acres, and not till then. DITCHES OF HOAR ANTIQUITY. It costs infinitely less to ditch than to build a mud wall and it wbuld be infinitely wiser to cut a ship channel, turning the Tennessee into Mobile Bay than to wall in the superabun dant waters of this mighty drain of East Tennessee, of West Virginia and of the Cumberland and Alleg hany mountains. And this task was onee executed by primeval dwellers here. Here, in eastern Alabama, from a point near Chattanooga, to the Coosa river the remains of the great ditch are still visible precisely like those of the old canal that used to divert floods of Red river into the Sabine. They who dug the canal built the ghostly fortification here ascribed to DeSoto. OTHER MIGHTY DITCHES. To enrich and aggrandise his coun try, which had made him enormous ly rich, Senator Stanford purposed the excavation of the Trans-Isth miaii or Nicaraguan canal. His son urged him, instead, to crqate Stan ford University and thus bless the poor and rich of California. Senti ment, rather than practical reason governed the conduct of the excel lent Mr. Stanford and instead of the N icaraguan canal, that will yet have its northern terminus within Mobile Bay extended to Tuskaloosa and thence to the Tennessee near Hunts ville, we have only a beautiful river in California (made to flow one hun ered miles around mountains and plains on which Stanford University is built. WHY I PRINT THIS LETTER. I would print this letter to dis cover some Stanford who would double and quadruple a Hundred times his own and the richesjof the people of the South by diverting the superabundant waters of the Ten nessee from Knoxville and from Cario to Mobile. Hold up a map of the South before the eyes of learn ing or ignorance and enquire how enormous must be the riches of a city on the Gulf coast at the wharves of which every ship from Europe, wanting coal or iron or steel or cot ton or wheat or bacon or beef or rice must land and these ships will come through the Florida ship canal to meet, at limitless wharves of the mightiest city on the globe, innum erable ships from Pacific Islands, empires, States and Nations. WHY THEY COME. Every staple product of human labor will bo collocated at the wharves of this unnamed city “at less cost” than elsewhere in the world ami all the nations will there fore come to buy most for the least money; and folly and crime will build no Chinese wall of tariffs to exclude the meanest and poorest or richest of our race. AN APOCALYPTIC VISION. Ten thousand square miles of coal and iron and riches gathered by one hundred thousand miles of railroads, turned backwards from New York and Boston and from Chicago to wards this monstrous city near the shores of our Aegean, will create here, in Southern Alabama, tho world’s metropolis, Memphis, Nash ville, Atlanta, Chattanooga and Birm ingham will bo its mightiest fau bourgs and some Stanford will yet be found to create and name it. Louis J. DuPrke. Mentone, Ala., June 17. Wiltton for The Index. FROM ARKANSAS. THE NEED OF HOUSES OF WORSHIP IN WEST ARKANSAS AND INDIAN TERRITORY. Polk County, Arkansas, borders on Indian Territory. Dallas is tho county site of Polk and is the centre of a great circle, 150 miles in disin ter, in which there is not one town with a Baptist house of worship. In one tow n Baptists and Odd Fellows in a house, in another Baptists and Cambellites. But in their separate right, Baptists do not own one town house of worship in all the great circle. Think of it I One hundred and forty miles in diame ter! Paul and his Master cultivated tho towns. Should not other Bap tists imitate them ? Other denominations own houses in most towns in this great circle. In Dallas, both Methodists and Presby terians have houses. Baptists preach and hold their Sabbath School in a Presbyterian house. They have a day school under direction of the church, in an old residence, a little way out of town, and there they hold prayer meeting each Sabbath afternoon. Note four facts: 1. One year ago tho only Sabbath School in Dallas was a Union School with a Metho dist superintendent. He came to the Baptist conference, and expressing the wish of himself and his pastor and the Presbyterian pastor, request ed that the school be turned into a Baptist School. The proposition was accepted and there was born a Bap tist school, nourished by Kind Words literature, in a Presbyterian house and that is still the home of this Baptist child! 2. One of the lady teachers, a wi dow with seven children, lives two and a half miles away, attends reg ularly and walks nearly every time. An aged, intelligent sister, five miles away, is prompt at her chureh meet ings, walking generally. 3. A gentleman, not a professor of religion, proposed to give SSOO if the Baptists will build a $2,000 house with rooms for church and school purposes. 4. Dallas is the centre of the high est and hcalthest country South of Arkansas River. Several railroads poiting this way will finally bring a thick population to this healthy re gion. Does not this central town need a Baptist housq? The poor members wilj do their best and who will help them to raise SISOO that they may secure the SSOO ? Who will speak first? How many other towns and coun try points need to be mentioned if we had space! Look at the erowds of whites that are pressing into the In dian domain ! The beautiful Indian Territory, including Oklahoma, is rapidly increasing in population, and internal improvements. Seven rail roads are already there. Invaluable coal fields are being opened. Towns and cities are born like magic. Think' of 125 ralroad cities, towns and depots, all in Indian Territory! But not more than one in twenty five (out of Oklahoma) has a Baptist Church house in it. If there are seven railroads now, how many will there be when the whites become citizens of this Indian land ? Nine towns have churches without houses. Purcell, the large Southern gateway to Oklahoma, Vinita, the crossing of two great railroads> Talihena, a strong shipping and trad ing point, and Hartshorn, the beauti ful young mining city are all without houses. And so is Eufaula, the old homo of the great missionary, H. F. Buckner. South McAlester, with two railroads, and coal beyond estimate, is rapidly becoming a large city, but has no Baptist church nor house. What must the future be in this Territory if these railroad towns remain without Baptist houses of worship ? Oh, how how many other towns and promisting points in the country that need houses! Missionaries arc asking for tents in which to hold meetings. Who will help some and soon, and then again, ’till the Lord’s houses are built? E. L. Compere. Written for The Index. FROM CALIFORNIA. THE REFLEX OF MISSIONS. “Give and it shall be given unto you,” said the Divine Lord. Sclf impartation is sclf-cnrichnicnt. This benign principle seems to hold both in nature and in grace, and has abun dant illustration in the annals of the Christian faith. In the historic cen tury now closing, tho Christian world has seen to a greater or less degree, imparting itself its sympa thy, its funds, its life-blood in the direction of missions in tho “Re gions Beyond.” What reflex influ ences have returned to the home church in keeping with this law ? What enrichment has come to tho Brother Minister, Working Layman, Zealous Sister, Wo arc striving to make CClie Index the best of its kind. Help us by securing a new subscriber. VOL. 69-NO. 26. Christian world from Christian ef fort and expenditure in the hea’then world ? Os course an answer to such ques tions in full cannot be undertaken in a newspaper article. For, in truth to answer them in full would mean the sifting of a century of human history, a century as crowded with stirring forces as any known to man. I can only point to a few prominent and manifest effects which have been produced on the church at home, by the efforts made by the church abroad, and commend the theme to the research and reflection of the reader. The modern missionary move ment gave a needed resuscitation to church life. It would hardly be stating the,case too strongly to say, that Foreign Missions saved the life of the church. When the movement began, “Piety at home lay a dying.” Tho church seemed a great giantess well-nigh stiff with the freezing inactivity. The sixteenth century Reformation had proved to be “self centred and self-bounded.” It fail ed to reach out to the “lost,” but addressed itself to the task of in doctrinating the “saved.” And it gave the church a terminology for its teaching which being largely un preachable was practically impotent. It fostered a party spirit and begat an intense selfishness in clergy and creed and church. Spiritual suicide had almost ensued. Tho burial of Christianity in the cold tomb of an irreligious and immoral “churchian ity,,’ seemed at hand. What was the guarantee afforded by the New Testament for salvation from such a state? What is the only New Testament guarantee for the renew ing of life, either in a Christian or a church ? This, viz : the directing of one’s energies from self, outward to another. This] is the economy of grace. Actuated by this principle and adopting this policy the church ■ felt the return of life and spiritual power. The Foreign Mission Enterprise brought into prominence the indi vidual, and illustrated both his pre rogative and his power. Until that time the individual had been held back. He had been subordinated to hierarchy and self-propagating eccle siasticisin. Luther's crime was that he was an individual. A corrupt and compact organism had held sway for centuries with only a few souls strong enough to stand as men in its midst. The Carey movement had its ini tiative and its inspiration in the in dividual. Its work among the hea then masses also lias been largely that of the individual, both in teach ing and training. The church and the school are, of course, coming more and more into power, but very largely the individual with his hand to hand, personal work, has been tho glory of missions. Woman, as a Christian worker in modern times, has been brought in to prominence by Foreign Missions, The greatest trend of the missionary enterprise has been in the direction of women. The heathen woman has had chief concern on the part of the church. And in this work woman herself, has been the only practical missionary. The Zenanas have been closed to Christian men. This of course operated powerfully in awakening and developing woman workers in the home church. In every line of church life during this missionary century, she has come to the front. So ndich so, that no event will appear to tho future his torian of our century of more signifi cance than the woman’s movement in the direction of Christian and philanthropic endeavor. Voluntary organization of Chris, tian forces into “societies,” “unions,” and the like was largely the sugges tion of the missionary spirit and ex perience. Foreign Missions felt tho necessity for organization from the start. “Foreign” societies arc older than our “Home” societies. Homo Missions, as organized work, were born of the Foreign Mission move ment. And the immense advantage of organization as exemplified on tho Foreign field has made itself felt on all the benevolent spirit of Chris tianity, and all intelligent benevo lence to-day looks toward organiza tion. Cooperation is the genius of the age as represented by Christian ity. The heart and faith of the