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4 Published Every Thursday at 57*/a 8. Broad Street. Atlanta. Ga. THE CHUROH. AND ITS OONOORD. The tendency of mind is toward association with mind. The desire of society is an inherent and indes tructible element of human nature. “The two main properties of man,” says More, “are contemplation and sociableness, or love of converse.” The heart, isolated from its fellows, feels that violence has been done to a fundamental law of its constitution —the impulse which must always urge it to hold in high valuation the fellowship of the souls around it, as an indispensable requisite to its own personal felicity: it must enjoy them that it may fully enjoy itself. It is fair to demand, then, that re ligion, if it claim acceptance as a system adapted to our nature and our needs, must adapt itself to so obvious and so important a feature in the economy of the human intel lect. And we find, therefore, that the Bible everywhere regards man as a social being. It is in this char acter that Christianity imposes on him bis most solemn duties, throws around him his most exalted privi leges, ami inspires him with his most relined enjoyments. In the Lord’s prayer we are instructed to say, “Our Father who art in heaven,” to remind us of the equality, the union and the sympathy which subsist of right among all who come into the divine presence ; to give us a pledge that the lost brotherhood of the race shall be regained' by believers at his feet. A strong and perhaps not in accurate expression of this truth gave birth to Methodism. Wesley formed the little society of fifteen fellow students at Oxford under the force of a remark made to him by a Christian more mature than himself : “You wish to serve God and go to heaven ; remombor that you cannot serve him alone; you must therefore find companions or make them; the Bible knows nothing of solitary re ligion.” The religion of the Bible, there fore, means not only a personal character, but a social relation; it means a social relation based on a personal character. A moment’s thought will show this. With every change of the purpose for which they arc created .societies take new forms, find new centres of attraction, confers tho supremacy of new prin ciples of organization, of vigor and infirmity, of growth and decay, of perpetuity and death. Literary so ciety has elements of vitality and efficiency peculiar to literature; com mercial society elements of vitality and efficiency peculiar to commerce j religious society elements of vitality and efficiency peculiar to religion. A church i s a religious society, and must, therefore, exist on religious principles, its own distinctive ele ments. But religious principles are sufficiently defined for our present purpose as right states and affections of the heart, Godward and manward Os course, a church is an association of persons, the states and affootiions of whose hearts are right; right and therefore, accordant; right, and therefore, co-operative; right, and therefore through their alikeness at peace. 'This is the ideal, this is tho true church. As there can be no literary society where there is no cultivation of the mind, or habit of study; and as there can bo no com mercial society when there is no cap ital, and no labor, no manufacture, no tillage of the soil, and no ex change, so there can be no religious society—no church—where this pur ity and this fraternity of the states and afflictions of the heart are want ing. Without these there may be the name of the church, there may be the creed of the church,there may be tlio ceremonial of the church, there may bo the personnel of the church ; in a word, there may bo tho body of jtho church; but the church itself, the life, tho spirit of the church, there is not and there can not be. This representation of what is es sential to religious society, or tho church, combines purity in personal character and fraternity in social re lation. The combination is not cas ual, but vital: it is in the nature of things and not simply in our way of Stating them. For good, especially good as deriving existence from the spirit of God, preserves and must preserve concord through the whole range of its principles and exercises That which is right and holy can never bo at war with that which is holy and right, since this would be no other than to be at war with it self and with its author. The har mony of the church, as a rule, is in proportion to its holiness. The church’s dissensions furnish a fair standard for the admeasurement of its defilings. According to the apos tle James, the wisdom that is pure is also peacable, gentle and easy to be entreated. And where envying and strife is, there, he tells us, is not only confusion, or tumult, or un. quietness, but every evil work. What weight the foregoing con siderations, grouped together, attach to the exhortation addressed by Paul to the saints in Christ Jesus at Phil ippi: “Do all things without mur merings and disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights (as luminaries, and heavenly orbs) in the world,” Phil. 2 :14, 15. Picture to yourself a church in which this coun sel is faithfully and universally ob served. A church in which there is no variance, no discord, no jar, no faction, no feud; a church in which “all kindly think and sweetly speak the same,” while “often for each other fiows tho sympathizing tear;” a church in which differences of opin ion never induce estrangement of feeling, nor diversities of taste swell into opposing currents of action ; a church in which the affliction or the reproach or the loss of one is the grief of all; in which to every indi vidual as dear and as sacred as his own reputation is the reputation of the entire membership; in which every brother has the heart of a brother indeed and every sister the heart of a sister indeed! Ah, if we could paint these things instead of simply speak them, kindling with the view, the soul might well take fire and the bosom glow with intense and unutterable emotions. Surely, an gels themselves might linger in the midst of such a church, half-willing to forsake for its communion the communion of their own celestial hosts. Is your church, a church of that kind, reader? If it is, how far was it you that made it so, and how far is it you that keeps it so? If it is not, what had you to do with pre venting it from reaching that state, and what have you to do with suffer ing the years to roll by with never an effort to reach it? These are no trivial questions. They have to do with the great and vital truths which are the only reasons why churches should bo churches at all or why Christians should be Chris tians at all. For many, alas, there lie in them unrecognized because un sought proofs that their place and portion are amohg those illusions of the spirit which are sadder than the saddest illusions of the senses; that is to say, among Christians that are not Christians and churches that are not churches. May wisdom be granted us to look on them with something of tho solemnity which shall clothe them at the judgment seat of Christ, where in tho words of tho apostle we must all appear— “must all bo made manifest”— “must all bo turned inside out.” ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. Prof. William Arnold Stevens, of Rochester Theological Seminary, ex presses, in the Homeletic Review’ for September, the opinion, that “taken as a whole, the Acts of tho Apostles is tho least read book of tho New Testament.” We do not know by just what lines of proof ho reached the conclusion as to this special neg lect of tho narration of life and ex perience among believers during the thirty-three years immediately fol lowing the thirty-throe years of our Savior's sojourn on the earth, of which the four Gospels give us such record as was divinely deemed meet. But so far as the neglect exists, w e share his regrets over it: “we beat the breast as he wails to us.” (Matt. 11 :17.) This neglect obscures, as ho says two points of doctrine “calling for urgent emphasis never more than to day, as standing in vital relation, and only to each other, but to the pres ent cxegencies of Christian thought.” : Acts, he tells us, “is the book of the Holy Spirit,” and he counts it “not too much to say that its twenty eight chapters afford a greater abun dance of information on the work and methods of the Spirit than anv other book of the Bible.” Acts also “is the book of tho Church,” a body of believers of which the agency of the Spirit was the organizing princi ple, in its fundamental idea a witness ing body, and through its fidelity to that idea emphatically nnd distinct ively a missionary church. Surely, it requires no second glance to as sure one that these are momentous 1 departments of religious inquiry, car- I rying in themselves the weightiest THE CHRISTIAN INDEX: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBERIS. 1892. dissuasives from neglect of that por tion of Scripture which constitutes our principal source of knowledge respecting them. But in addition to the inherent importance of these two themes, we have a further reason for searching out the fullest light that the Script ures shed on them. In his “Ancient Christianity,” Isaac Taylor makes it undeniably certain that there was an apostasy akin to the Roman but ear, lier ;an apostasy before the age of Constantine and Nice, and setting its mark on the three centuries im mediately succeeding the close of the Scripture canon. According to Taylor, the apostasy resulted from the leaven of oriental philosophy in its Gnostic forms which crept into the teaching of the churches, bear ing fruits of sacramentalism and as ceticism. According to Dr. A. 11. Lewis, as indicated by the title of his recent work, “Paganism Surviv ing in Christianity,” it resulted from a much more general influence of Pagan thought and Pagan institu tions on the belief and practice of Christians. But explain it as we may, the fact of such an apostasy, so early, so widespread, touching ques tions so vital, must seriously dis count the testimony of antiquity on doctrinal and ecclesiastical matters. It shuts us np more and more to the Sacred Volume as our only safe guide, and renders it doubly crimi nal on our part to neglect the light shed by Acts on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the Christian Church. We are inclined to think that this neglect had much to do with that early declension from the purity of the faith. When Chrysostom says that “there were many among his hearers to whom the book was not even known, while many again thought it so plain that they slighted it,” one cannot well help feeling that if the case had been different, if there had been a better knowledge and a more just appreciation of the book, the faith of Christians would have been less vulnerable to pro cesses of corruption. Nor is it unlikely that this neg lect, if we perpetuate it in our own case, will be judicially avenged on us, as it seems to have been on the ancient church. It may deliver us into the hands of the old error under aggravated forms, or into tl;o hands of errors worse and more dead ly than they. We hope, therefore, that tho stud ies of our Sunday-schools, for what remains of the present year and for part of the year to come, in the book of Acta will secure special attention, not frem teachersand scholars only, but from the membership of tho churches at large. We are in the habit of saying, and we say justly that Acts is a Baptist book. But there is another thing which we would more like to say, a deeper and a higher thing, namely, that Bap tists are an Acts people. Per haps, we shall make some progress in that direction if, for a reason, it becomes to us all (not tho least but) the most read book of the Now Tos t ament. THE GO3PEL SOLUTION. Tho solution of the labor problem is confessedly one of the most per plexing questions appealing to politi cal economists for settlement. The Carnegie troubles at Hempstead, tho mining outrages in Idaho, tho rail road strikes in New York, and the lamentable disturbances in Tennes see, all force this problem to the front in the minds of all who thoughtfully contemplate our coun try's future. How shall tho ques tions involved bo met? If tho liber ties of our free land are to be per petuated, tho murmuring discontent and overt acts of labor cannot always be silenced and crushed at tho point of the bayonet. Present efforts to “put down the turbulent laboring classes” scannot long be successful. There is an irresistablo power for wreck and ruin in those classes when roused to hate and fury. The track of human history is strewn with ovi. donees of the final failure of brute force as tho solution of social prob lems. Tho fearful “reign of terror” in Franco was the legitimate out come of the relentless despotism of the privileged classes against the masses. It is common to say harsh things about the blooody actors in that era of unbridled ferocity, but thoughtful students of the history leading up to 1790 in Franco easily see the inevitable outworking of the inexorable law of cause and effect. Tho vials of wrath have been poured out in historic pages upon the simple peasants of Germany who rose against their titled oppressors in 1525. Impartial judgment to-day is compelled to decide that, in spite of the excesses to which their phrenzy may have given birth, those peasants were in the’main right in their de mands. The rebels of to-day are the patriots of to-morrow. Christian thought, at least, should approach the consideration of our present problems in the spirit of Christ, and Christian statesmen should seek the solution of them upon the principles of immutable right. The golden rule of Jesus should be the regnant law of all. “As ye would that men should do to you do ye also unto them.” This em bodies eternal right, this forbids all wrong. Cast this sublime principal into the seething bitter waters of all social agitation, and they become calm and sweet. This has been strikingly illustrated by the million aire merchant prince and evangelist, Mr. Charles N. Crittenton, who has taken into partnership five of the heads of departments. in his great wholesale house in New York, pro nounced by the New York “Times” “probably the largest in the world.’’ The New York press is full of praise for this notable deed. The New York “Herald” says : “On its face the transaction was simply the re organization of the house of Charles N. Crittenton as an incorporated company. Suppose the same principle had controlled in the consideration and settlement of the Carnegie and sim ilar troubles referred to, is it not fair to presume that justice and con tent would have triumphed? Os course, our argument assumes that all sides to these unfortunate distur bances shall loyally revere and ob serve thegolden rule. It is as binding on the masses as on the classes—on labor as on capital. The employee as well as the employer must recognize its supreme arbitrament. All can see that in the Hempstead affair, for example, that neither Carnegie’s company uor the striking men had any regard for the rule. Each party there seems to have been controlled only by selfish determination to win regardless of right. We say nothing as to the merits of the questions in controversy, we simply maintain that in the consideration of the con tested questions neither party seem ed to care a straw for the golden rule. Indeed, whatever may be true as to the socialistic and anarchistic tendencies of tk( "striking working men, tho Carnegie company is com posed of men who do not recognize Christ’s law. In a recent issue of the National Baptist of Philadelphia, is a letter from a prominent Presby terian minister in Pittsburg, in which the startling fact is stated that Carnegie himself, as well as every member of his company, is an acknowledged unbeliever! The sev eral members are mentioned either as open infidels or professed agnos tics. Mr. Frick, the leading man in this trouble, was once a member of a Baptist church, but years ago he turned his back on Christ. No marvel is it, either, for his peculiar methods in the many troubles in which he has figured as the inveter ate foe of organized labor, stamp him as one who has always scorned the sublime precept of our Lord. Happy shall we be as a people when Christ’s golden rule shall be tho recognized regnant law in private and public life. When this precept shall control in trade and commerce, in the adjustment of the mutual re lations of capital and labor,in thought and conduct, wo shall rightly solve the burning problems now disturb ing our peace. And let us ever ponder tho mighty fact that no question is ever settled till it is set tled right. HIMSELF. YOURSELF. “That is the best gift which has in it the most of the giver.” Wo found that sentence in an in teresting article written by Prof. Jas. 1). Butler, about Shaw's Garden, St. Louis, in The Watchman. Aug. 18, 1892. Mr. Shaw not only gave his mon ey to purchase the land and to pay someliody else to lay off and plant the garden, but ho spent much of his time, in supervising and directing the work, and did a great deal of personal labor in executing his own plans for improving and beautifying it. He gave himself as well as his money. Many of our gifts are unmixed with self. The gramenta given are not only empty in a literal sense, but they arc too often empty of the spirit of the giver. Much of tho money given is simply dead cold com with out any of the life or warmth of the giver about it. Such gifts may go on their missions, and do the receiv- er good so far as relieving bodily want is concerned. But if the gift goes alone, if none of the giver’s self goes with it, there is little bles sing to the giver, and little gratitude from the receiver. The heart of neither giver or receiver is moved. That is not the way God gave. Jesus, His Son, was not merely a man. He was Emmanuel, “ God with us.” In giving His Son, there fore, God gave Himself. So Christ, in his own person and nature, gave himself. He “ loved us and gave himself for us.” “He gave himself for our sins.” “He gave himself a'ransom for all.” His love, his labor, his life, were given for us. In giving, this is our example. Let not the gift leave our hands without carrying ourselves with it. If need be, if the occasion and the cause demand it, our whole being, soul and body, should be given. It w’as this spirit of giving which Paul so highly commended in the Corinthian Chris tians,-“ Themselves they gave first to the Lord, and to us through the will of God.” 2 Cor. 8: 5. In any event, let us give our hearts along with our gifts. Let our desires our prayers, our love go with them and abide with them. Remember,” that is the best gift which has in it the most of the giver.” CONVERTING A SINNER. JAS. 5 :20 1. The work. Sin is the transgression of the law, the law of God. A sinner is a trans gressor of the law. He is a wan derer, as the word transgressor means. He is going contrary to the law of God. He is going away from God, away from good to evil, from happiness to misery. To convert one is to turn him around. It is to start him in the op posite direction from that in which ho has been going. To convert a sinner is to turn him from disobe dience to obedience. It is to get him out of the wrong way into the right way. It is to turn him from Satan to God, from sin to holiness, from self-dependence to dependence on God, from works of law to works of grace, from self-righteousness, to the righteousness of Christ. That is converting a sinner from the error of his way. 2. The result. (1.) A soul is saved from death. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “The wages of sin is death.” Not tho death of the body. That is the inevitable doom of all. There is no discharge from that war. It is ap pointed unto men once to die, and there is no escape from the appoint ment. The death referred to is spiritual death, eternal death. It includes the guilt of sin, the reigning pow’er of sin, the love of sin, and banishment from the presence of God, dwelling with Satan, the ex tinguishment of hope, the blackness of despair, forever. (2.) Hiding a multitude of sins. Not the hiding of the sins of the person who does the work, but the sins of the converted sinner. Even in a short life an unconvert ed man commits a multitude of sins. Ho lives, daily, in disobedient© to God’s hoiy law. He is a continual and persistent rejectot of the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Besides these direct transgsessions, his influence on others multiplies the number until they go beyond the bound of computation. The longer an unconverted man lives, the greater the multitude of his sins. No matter how old he may, nor how great the multitude of his sins, if he is converted from the error of his way, and his soul saved from death, his sins are all hidden. They aro cast into tho depths of the sea. They are remembered no more against him, forever.” Blessed is the man whose transgression is for given : whose sin is covered.” 3. Can a Christian do such a work ? Os himself, he cannot As an in strument in God’s hands, he can. In the work of salvation God uses human instrumentality. “The Man, Christ Jesus,” tho only Mediator be tween God and man, was made flesh and dwelt among us, that we might come to God through Him. God Himself used the instrument of a hu man body, that He might accomplish His purpose of grace in atoning for sin on the cross. Jesus called twelve men, w’hom he specially instructed, endowed with miraculous power, and sent thorn forth to proclaim the good news of salvation. Through the preaching of these men thousands were con verted and saved. Thousands and millions more have been converted and savd through like human in strumentalities. The work goes on to-day by the use of the same kind of means. It has pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save men. He has committed unto men “the ministry of reconciliation.” He has called and sent out men “as am bassadors for Christ.” It is the bus iness of these men to persuade men “to be reconciled to God.” The whole Bible w T as written by human hands guided by the Holy Spirit. It is the work of human hands to prinf it, and to bear it to those who have it not. It is the w’ork of human minds to study it,.of human lips to proclaim and to ex pound it. Not one word of the New Testament was written by Christ Himself. It was all written by men as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” So it is the duty and privilege of every believer in Jesus to be an in strument in his hands to convert sinners, to save sonls from death, and to hide multitudes of sins. For what knowest thou, oh wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband ? Or what knowest thou, oh man whether thou shalt save thy wife ? 1 Cor. 7 :16. Paul became “servant unto all that he might gain the more. To the Jews, as a Jew ; To them under the law, as under the law ; to them without law, as without law ; to the weak, as w’eak ; I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” 1 Cor. 9 :19-22. Take heed to thyself, and unto the doctrine ; continue in them ; for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. 1> Tim. 4 :16. So every Christian may be, and ought to be, an instrument for the same work. Every true Christian is an intercessor. He may’ success fully’ persuade his fellow-men. His prayers of faith, and his godly’ life and example will avail much toward the salvation of those around him. God does not always keep His pow to Himself, but often clothes his peo ple with it. He who has ordained the instrument, will, by that instru ment, accomplish the thing for which He ordained it. Learn. 1. Every saved person should be a missionary. Saved himself, he desires the sal vation of others. Knowing the worth of his own soul, he knows the worth of other souls. Having seen his own danger, he know’s the dan ger of others Knowing the terror of the Lord, be persuades men to bo reconciled to God. Having felt the love of Christ, that love constrains him, and he becomes an ambassador for Christ. 2. A strong proof. An effort to save others is a strong proof that he who makes the effort is saved himself. A man who makes no effort in any’ way, to save others, gives strong proof that he is not saved himself. Such a man had better make careful examination into his own condition. 3. The honor of it. God has associated us with him self in the work. We are “co-work, ers with Him.” The work itself is honorable. Christ deemed it worthy of His in carnation and sacrifice. In it the mission of the Holy Spir it is fulfilled. God, the Father, gave His Son that it might be done. The sum of moral evil is dimin ished, and the sum of moral good is augmented by’ it. The salvation of the soul is the sublimest of moral triumphs. “His work is honorable and glo rious.” “They that be wise (or teachers) shall shine as the bright ness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever.” Dan. 12 :3. 4. To hide Sin. Sih is tho ugliest thing in the world. Its ugliness shows itself everywhere. It is seen in every repulsive face, in every deformed body, in every angry look, in every scowling coun tenance, in every idiotic stare. It is heard in every infant’s cry’, in every’ mother’s moan, in every father’s groan, in every shriek of pain, in every bitter curse, in every wlifull lie, and every dying gasp. It has changed angels into devils and men into demons. It has shut the gates of heaven and opened the doors of hell. It has filled the minds and hearts of men with deceit, theft, adultery, covetousness, hatred, mal ice, murder. It is hateful, hideous. Christian, lift up your voice, in treat your fellowman, plead with God, stretch out your hands, take hold upon the mantle of Christ’s for giving grace, cover the horrible thing, and hide it from the sight of God and man. The Catholics in Indiana are re monstrating against compulsory edu cation, and also, against paying tax es for the support of the public schools, while they are, at the same time, maintaining parochial schools at their own expense. They are right in opposing com pulsory education, and in keeping up their denominational schools. Compulsory education is an un warranted invasion of parental rights and duty. It is a forcible wresting by the State, of the child from the hands of the parent. It is a violent disruption of family ties, an unnatu ral interference with home duties, and a hurtful phase of paternalism. The Catholics are right in opposing it. They are right in keeping up their denominational, or parochial schools: It is the solemn duty of every Chris tian to see to it that religious edu cation keeps even pace with secular education. The latter, alone, does not, can not, train the heart. The State can not furnish religious teachers, or rather, teachers whose business it is to teach religion. In that matter the State must stand aloof, and seal its lips. It is a work which the dif ferent denominations only, can prop erly and successfully do for their own children. More than this, it is the duty of each denomination to do it. In do ing it, the Catholics are acting on the right principle. But they are wrong in calling upon the State of Indiana to release them from paying taxes to support the free schools of the State while they accept money from the Federal Treasury, and every year lobby and clamor for increased appropriations to carry on their parochial schools among the Indians. Paying state taxes for the maintainanco of the public schools of Indiana is no more than all other tax paying citizens who are members of other denomi nations are doing. They, in support, ing their denominational schools, are paying double tax as well as the Catholics. Baptists are the only exception. They pay taxes for the support of state schools, but they accept no money, either from State or Federal treasuries, to maintain their denominational schools. Those who take with the right hand, for their own benefit, must not complain if they are called on to give with the left hand for the bene fit of others. To be consistent if they are unwilling to give, thev must, also, refuse to take. “This is my preacher” said a fond mother to her pastor as she laid her hand tenderly on the head of her second son. “Arc you going to be a preacher,” said the pastor as he took Sam upon his knee. “Yes sir,” said Sara. Whereupon the pas tor inquired, “Why do you want Sam to be a preacher ? “Because I want one of my boys to preach and Jim don’t take to the idea much, and then Sam is such a good boy I think ho will suit exactly.” What does all this mean? Why simply this, the people know very little about how a man comes to be a preacher. Most people do not know what is meant by “a call to preach.” Near ly all of them imagine it is a good, easy, fat place into w’hich a fellow drops when he is too good to be a lawyer or fill some other of the pro fessions. Sometimes tho ambitious parents fix out the vocations of their several boys and begin early to impress them with their idea of the boys fu ture life. Sometimes it does very well, simply because it happens in the case of some to hit, but in many cases and especially in that of tho ministry, it is apt to be a wreatched failure. Good farmers aro spoiled and un successful professional men made by the false ambition of parents. In olden times the sons took up the trade os their fathers’ That is true now in this country in some de gree. Thus we have the names of those families that end, with “son.” This son was the son of a Smith and following his father the Son-Smith or “Smithson.” It might not be tho proper thing every time for the sons to follow the trade or calling of their fathers. There may be a first class teachei, lawyer or statesman whose father is a farmer, and there may be splendid fanners whose fathers aro in professional life. Certainly the ministry will not necessarily come from the families who aro in the ministry. Let every young man choose his own vocation, except those who preach. Let them wait till they have a call from God. Ho can make him self understood. Mothers may pray that God will call their sons’ to preach and they may educate them toward their laith, but let the Lord call them. 1 hen He will endue them with an unction from on high.