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ESTABLISHED 1821. WeChristiarflndex Published Every Thursday By <Sc VAN NESS Address Christian Index, Atlanta, Ga. Organ of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia. Subscription Prick: One copy, one year One copy, six months ABOUT OUR Advertisers.—We propose hereafter to very carefully investigate our advertisers. We shall exercise every cure to allow only reliable parties to use our col umns. . , Obituaries.—One hundred words free or charge. For each extra word, one cent per word cash with copy. To Correspondents—Do not use abbrevi ations; be extra careful in writing proper names; write with ink. on one side of paper. Do not write copy Intended for the editor and business items on same sheet. Leave off personalities, condense. Business.—Write all names, and post offices distinctly. In ordering a change give the old as well as the new address, rhe date of label indicates the time your subscription expires. If you do not wish It continued, or der it stopped a week before. We consider each subscriber permanent until be orders his paper discontinued. When you order it stopped pay up to date. Remittances by registered letter, money order, postal note For the Index. Sunday School Lesson for March 22. —Faithful and Unfaithful Servants Luke 1-2:37-18. BY. S. G. HILLY ER. The basis of this lesson is evi dently the second coming of Christ. Though not mentioned in terms, yet it is the event to which the Savior’s words on this occasion clearly point. It de serves, therefore, to be fully considered. I. NOTICE, FIRST, THE CERTAINTY OF HIS COMING. Its certainty depends upon the veracity of the New Testament, and upon it alone. If we admit its veracity, then we are by faith assured of the second coming of our Lord; for it is mentioned, as the learned tell us, more than three hundred times by the writers of the New Testament. These writers must have been fully persuaded, in their own convictions, of the truth of the prophecy; for we discover that the expectation of its fulfilment was one, and a very important one of the motives that inspired and directed all their self deny ing labors Indeed, the second coming <-f Christ is so completely interwoven with the story of Jesus and the teachings of the apostles, that to elimi nate it would destroy the whole fabric of Christianity itself; and the New Testament would be relegate d to the regions of fable and fiction. 11. THE MANNER OF HIS COMING. He shall come in the clouds of heaven, accompanied by holy angels, heralded by the sound of the trumpet, and in great power and glory. And he shall come in his own proper person and be visible to every eye; even they who pierced him shall see him. (Rev. 1:7.) 111. THE TIME OF HIS COMING. In presenting this topic for our consideration, let me say in advance, I have no reference to any human calculations upon the subject. My aim is, if possible, to determine at what point in the order of events God has fixed the second coming of Christ, i.e . his second personal and visible coming. His invisible presence has never been withdrawn from his people. When he was about to be taken up out of their sight he said to them: “Lo! I am with you alway to the end of the W’orld.” He is with them in the ministrations of the Holy Spirit whom he sent in his place to be their guide, their comforter, and their helper. Though sitting at the right hand of his Father in heaven, he has been all the time reigning, by the agency of his Spirit, over the kingdom of God on earth. In the progress of that king dom we notice, from time to time, important events that stand as epochs in its history. Such an epoch was the day of Pentecost. Another was the conversion of Constantine; another was the reformation in the sixteenth cen tury, and another was the revival of modern missions in 1792. All these are past. They were sea sons when Christ came to his people in his providential guid ance and in the grace of his Spirit. But we look for other epochs yet future. Such will be the restoration and conversion of the Jews, the fall of antichrist, the ushering in of the Millen nium, and last of all, the great day of judgment. Now it is somewhere in the successive periods of time marked out by these future epochs that we must look for the personal and visible coming of Christ. And I think that our present lesson points clearly to the judgment day as the tithe of his coming, for which ha so ear nestly exhorts them to watch THE CHRISTIAN INDEX. and to K Jy. If you will read the whole .esson carefully, and compare it with Matt. 24:42 51. you will see thatthe subject of the Savior's warnings is the coming judgment over which he himself shall preside. But to make cer tainly, if possible, more certain, I will quite Matt. 25:31, 32: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of bis glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations ” These words were addressed to his disciples. He was sitting upon the Mount of Olives. At the beginning of the 24th chap ter he began to speak to his dis ciples about the impenling fate of Jerusalem, which was near at hand. And then he went on to speak of his own coming and of the impending judgment. And in the close of the chapter, gives substantially the same admoni tions which Luke gives us in our present lesson. He proceeds, in lie 25th chapter, in the same line of warning to give first the parables of the ten virgins and of the talents, both illustrating the sad effects of being unpre pared to meet the coming Lord. Then with the words above quoted, he introduces his won derful account of the judgment in all its solemn realities. “Waen the Son of Man shall come.” Come from where? If he had been, as the pre-millenarians be lieve, already reigning in his vis ible person at Jerusalem, sitting upon the literal throne of his father David over a subdued world what need for him to come from anywhere? Was he not already, according to the pre millenarians, on the earth at Je rusalem with his official atten dants all around him? Surely the language of the Savior must imply that his coming to judg ment is to be directly from heaven. Then we can under stand the other clauses that, de scribe his glory and his retinue made up of all the holy angels. That he shall come to the judg ment directly from heaven is also indicated by all the descriptions of his coming to which allusion was made under the second topic. In view of what has been said, I think we may conclude that we need not loik for the second vis ible coming of Jesus till he shall come to judge the world in righteousness according to the appointment and j urpose of the eternal Father. But the argument makes that awful day, whose duff is buried in impenetrable mystery, by far the most important to each one of us of all tiie days of eternity itself. Is it any wonder that our loving Savior, in view of the tremendous realities that he knew were suspended upon its irrevocable verdicts, should have warned his disciples, and through them all mankind, by precept and by parable, to be al ways “ready” to meet its com ing? This brings us to the special design of the lesson be fore us. It was intended to teach us: IV. THE ATTITUDE WHICH ALL CHRISTIANS SHOULD HOLD TO WARDS ‘ THAT DAY.” The Savior’s intention was to let his disciples know that he would soon leave them, and that during his absence he should entrust, in great measure, his estate (the interests of his king dom on earth) to their care and faithfulness. And he also taught them that some day he would re turn to them; and then there should be a reckoning with them as to the manner in which they had kept the trust committed to their faithfulness; for “judgment must begin at the house of God.” Such is evidently the teaching of the parables employed in the lesson. The day of his return is not fixed; but we have found that it shall synchronize with the final judgment. We know not how near or how remote it may be in the distant future. But it will surely come with all its eternal consequences. Then our attitude towards it should be an attitude of expectation and of watchful ness. We should be ever ready for the summons: “Go ye out to meet him.” It is a sad truth, that there are many foolish virgins, many un faithful stewards, many idle and lazy servants who bury their Lord’s money. It will go hard with them at the day of judg ment. In the light of this lesson I think our preachers should fill the air with their warnings. A failure to do it may convict some of them of unfaithfulness. Brethren, let us awake to the solemn responsibilities that rest upon us. Are we “ready” to meet our Lord at his second coming? 273 Washington St., Atlanta. To do nothing is to be nothing. ) SUBSCRIPTION. Pl* YtAB.--052.00. I Ito ministers. 100.1 For the Ini ex. What ot the Future? BY W. A. .IARREL, D. D. In a recent article in the North American lieview, Mr. M. G. Mul hall, one of the standard statisti cians,controverts the opinion that the nations of Christendom aie undergoing serious changes as regards vital statistics, and that their rates of increase are declin ing. Taking the vital statistics of the seven European nations that have for a half century kept accurate records, he shows that, while the birth-rates of the seven nations—England, France, Prus sia, Austria, Holland, Belgium and Scandinavia —have notably declined since 1880, the decline in death-rates has been still greater, so that the surplus of births over deaths is not falling but rising; that marriage-rates have declined since 1880, but the number of children to a marriage has increased in every country except Belgium; and that the natural increase of population has proceeded with greater ra pidity than ever before. As for the United States, it is found that the rate of increase of pop ulation has been steadily declin ing. In the five decades, from 1830 to 1890, except that in which the Civil War occurred, the an nual rate of increase of Ameri can-born population was almost uniform, at 231 per thousand; but in the decade from 1880 to 1890 it fell to 174. As no statis tics of deaths and births are kept in this country, the cause for this unquestioned decline is not easy to ascertain. It has been coincident with an extraor dinary increase of urban popula tion, and the reasonable infer ence is that the overcrowding of population in cities is unfavora ble to children The colored race is proportionately declining, although much more prolific than the whites; this being due to the high rate of infant mortality among the negroes. Forecast ing the populat ion for the census years 1900 and 1910, Mr. Mulhall predicts that in the latter year there will be of white Americans 68,400,000; of colored population, 9,400 000; and of foreigners, 12, 200,000, a total of 90,000,000, as against the 62,622,000 of 1890. As our area, including Alaska, is 3,000,000 square miles, the Union could easily support 210, 000,000 souls, or three times its present population. This, for the cause of missions, I have clipped from The Watch man, of Boston. Think of our country in about-ten years hav ing 90,000,000 ! Few of our fathers ever thought of such a thing. Then, of its ability to so easily support the 210,000.000. Yet, this is incalculably below its capability. What of the re ligious condition of this to-mor row’s vast population ? Considering our beloved South land is to soon be the manufactur ing part of our country and, con sequently, its great capital center do we not almost stand appalled before the question, what of its religious future ? Is our great nation to become a na tion of infidel, drinking, volup tuous mammon worshippers ? Is our great Southland, instead of continuing its envious history for faith and life, to become the accursed spot on which mammon will erect his throne ? Will the next generation see our children as materialized slaves, crouch ing around the foot of mammon’s throne? Considering the ad vent of manufacturing interests will cause a vast host of heathen —Romish foreigners, to crowd into our land which our fathers so hallowed and gave to God, the question more than doubles its force. As well now make up our minds that the once easy going, rural and notedly con servative Southland of our fathers is passing away to never return. Southern blood and Southern institutions, like the waters flow ing into the Gulf of Mexico, will soon be a thing of only the past. Let us remember that, as in ages passed, our God rules the world and that he is with his people, through them, especially to fulfill his eternal purposes. To his call, in the signs of the times and the Great Commission, let us rally to our churches, our missions, our educational work and our country’s need for poli tics instead of office-seeking demagogy. Thus we will make our beloved Southland as much greater than it was as the man is greater than the boy. Thus we will prove faithful to the heritage and trust of our fathers, in our churches, our missionary and educational institutions and our country they bequeathed us; thus we will ren der doubly sacred their memo ries, hallow their graves, bless the great crowds which God’s providence is sending us to feed with the bread of eternal life, ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY. MARCH 111, 189(1. glorify God and then lie down in our final sleep for our children to likewise hallow our graves, bless their time and generation, and when our Lord returns with them meet him with joy, to partake of the revelation of his glory—the glory of saving a lost world. Dallas, Texas. For the Index. Notes and Comments. REV. .1. C. Hl DEN. A correspondent of the Central Presbyterian recently gave a scathing criticism of the sensa tional methods which are becom ing so fashionable among a cer tain class of “revivalist” preach ers. The criticism was not too severe. Indeed, it would be dis ficult for Junius himself to make it too severe. And this condition of affairs suggests and empha sizes the thought, that sober minded people should be willing to labor and to make sacrifices in order to support institutions whose object is to train our preachers in the knowledge of what the Scriptures teach. Never was there a greater need of preachers who can take a pas sage of Scripture, tell us what it was intended to teach in the ex act connection in which it occurs, and then apply the teaching to the current needs of our actual every-day life. Th is is preach ing, and it is just this for which the professors in our Theological seminary are laboring to prepare their students. Should we not do what we can to help them? There is a self-balancing power in the moral, as well as in the physical universe. When “Stone wall” Jackson was professor of Natural Philosophy in the Vir ginia Military Institute, one of his most frequently repeated formulas was “Action and reaction are equal, contrary and simultaneous.” This is one of the great universal laws of physics. The stability and equilibrium of the material uni verse are based upon it. And something analogous to it is true in the intellectual and moral universe. There is a law of balance, or “compensation,’’ in all the known works of God. No power is ever wasted in the ma chinery of Heaven , Everything that seems lo be gdmg 'to wreck, or to waste, is still at work some how or some vhere. And this is only another form of that mar velous, sweeping statement of Paul, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” It is not always easy for us to put ourselves in the places of those whom we criticise, and yet it is often important to do it, as we are to be just in our estimate of human actions. “Oh! Daisy,” said the mother, as she glanced al the hands of her four year-old, “You never saw my hands look ing like those, did you?” “No,” said the little culprit, “but your mamma did. ” Ata certain church conference, at which this scribe was moder ator, a member applied for a letter. For some time past he had evi dently been dissatisfied with the church, and had been neglecting his duties as a member. He did not say that he desired to join another church; and he probably intended to pocket the letter and thus feel relieved of his member ship. When the application was made,one of the brethren, who had “taken in the situation,” arose and said : “Brother Moderaior, our Brother H. is not in good standing in this church, and I submit that we have no right to grant him a letter. I move that his case be referred to the Stand ing Committee on Discipline.” The motion was unanimously carried. The committee investi gated the case; the member ac knowledged his fault, amended his life and then did not want a letter. Another member asked for a letter. For two years he had paid nothing to the support of the church. He had no disposition to pay anything, and probably intended to join a church where they had “a free gospel.” He was asked if he wished to be ex cused from paying his dues on the ground of inability. He was a young, healthy man, doing a prosperous business; and he said, “No.” He was told that he could not get a letter, and as he persisted in his refusal to pay his dues, he was regularly ar raigned and excluded on the charge of “covetousness.” The evident effect which these two cases of discip line produced upon the church life of those who manfully did their duty and met the issue, was extremely gratifying to the pas tor. How would your church deal with such cases ? Richmond, Va. “He who is not willing to go any where for Christ is fit to go nowhere for him.” For the 1 ndex. Praying for Missions. BY REV. G. w. HURT. There is not as much of it in public or in private as there should be. One of the Chris tian’s highest duties and sweet est privileges is to pray. It is indispensable to the health of the soul. It is as natural lor the vigorous, robust Christian to ap proach often the throne of grace, as it is for the healthy, growing boy to seek the dining hall. One is no more essential to physical development than the other is to spiritual. Not all food is healthful to the body, and not all prayer is profit able to the soul. Indeed, that should hardly be called prayer which does not bring us into the presence of the king with an of fering which he will delight to honor. “Ye ask, and receive not, be cause ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” There is too much “celestial beg gary” in our prayers, and far too little real, anxious praying for the coming of the kingdom of God. We are taught to pray for that, to work for that, to live in expectation of that. Such pray ing is in harmony with the who e tenor of scripture teaching It will bring us nearer to God. It will make us more susceptible to the influences of the Word. It will bring China and Japan, aid Africa and Armenia and the “ut termost parts of the earth" near er to our hearts and cur purses. God will answer such prayers. Our missionaries, boards and secretaries often ask us to pray for missions. Do we ever treat the requf st as pious cant ? If, in all our churches and closets, the prayer were offered heartily and intelligently, “Thy kingdom come,” it would be better than the collection of thousands of dol lars for missions. The money would soon come in surprising sums, and the money that comes in answer to prayer, and is ac companied by prayer, will be prayerfully and wisely used. Oh, for a mighty revival of praying for missions “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, when you pray say, Father, hal lowed be thy name. Thy king dom come.” ’ • Guyton, Ga. For the Index. “In my Father’s House. ’ BY C. H. WETHERBEE. These words spoke Christ. They suggest that his Father’s house is a great home. The true son feels that he has a real home in the house of his loving and loved father. There is comfort in the thought that he has a father to go to, where he is ever welcome and can there rest his throbbing head and refresh his tired spirit and unburden his anx ious and troubled heart. There is no such exquisite freedom anywhere else. “In my Father’s house” —there I find sympathy and encourage ment and kindly concern for my best welfare. But not all father’s houses are like this. Some chil dren feel easier and more con tented and happier in some other father’s house than they do in their own father's house. But the true father —the father who has a true affection for the chil dren of his bosom and is in cir cumstances to make his house a comfortable abode —such a father’s house is a joyous and cherished home for his true hearted children, /\nd yet the best home, in the best house on earth, cannot be compared with the great Father’s house and home in the glory-land. We may take what we call an ideal, earthly home, and think of it as affording a faint and feeble illus tration of the exceedingly gor geous and glorious home of the blessed Father in heaven. And if we be true brethren and sis ters of Christ we can speak as Christ did, and say: ‘ ‘ J/?/ Father’s house.” We can call it our home, our ideal home, a home in which the sunshine of the glory of God forever lights it. and the sweet est and dearest of influences make it fragrant with their pres ence and immortal with their power. In that home there will be nothing lacking—no lack of the riches of a heavenly Father’s dearest love, nor any lack of the purest affection of sainted breth ren and sisters, neither will there lack a perfect, mutual confidence. O, What a superlatively magnifi cent home that is ! Tongue can not tell it, nor mind imagine it. Will such a house and home be yours at last ? There is an ocean of water for the fish to swim in ; there is an ocean of air for the bird to fly in ; and there is an ocean of God head for the soul to live in. Weariness. “Lord, 1 am oppressed; undertake for me.” Isaiah :b:H. Lord, with a very tired mind I H«*«-k Thy face; Thy shadowing wing alone enn be My r sting place. Oil. let the everlasting arms, Around me thrown, Mv secret sanctuary be From ills unknown. Thou knowest, Lord, the hidden cross None else may set ; For Thou appolntest every grief That chastens me! And I may plead with Thee, iny God, For patient strength. That this Thy discipline of love Bear fruit at length I need not ft nr lo tel 1 Thee all. My heavenly Friend,— Os conflict, longing, vague unrest,— Thou sett’st the end: And Thon wilt lead my weary feet From world-worn ways. Through paths of everlasting peace. To calmer days Lord! dwell within my heart, and till Its emptiness; Ret Thou its hope above the reach Os earth 11 ness; Baptize its love, through suffering, J nto Thine own. And work in me a fail h that rests On Christ alone. —Mary Kent Adams Stone. The Manliness of Being: Persuaded Now notice the beautiful meth od of persuasion which God em ploys. lie comes by his gospel to every man just where he is. He does not say to him, “Wait first until you see your faults and sins;’’ he does not say, “Wait until you are a better man;” but he comes to a man wherever he finds him, and seeks to melt the hard heart, and appeals to the manliness not yet dead in his soul, and awakens visions and dreams of possibilities not yet vanished; and a new man is born —a new possession for the king dom of God. A new power of righteousness is given to every man thus coming of his own free will: and because God has touched his heart he is born in to the glorious liberty of the sons of God. See, also, the blessed testimony that is to the truth. Think of that. It is easy for ns to say that God is truth.. It is easy for us to think that God knows all truth. It is easy for us to declare, one to an other, that religion is the meth od of truth. But what is the proof of it? The proof lies out side of us and beyor d anything in our plans. The proof ol all pi-oofs lies in the divine method itself. God has more at stake than we have, or than society has. or than the whole world taken together has, in the sue ess of his plan of redemption. God has staked his own soul, we may reverently say, upon saving the world, as the witness of his love. He has done what divinity alone could conceive, in the sac rifice of Jesus Christ. What, then, does God do? He seems to stand back and simply wait for the sure working of his own plan. Now we judge men’s integrity, we judge their confi dencein their own plans, by their patience. Are they always try ing to amend their ways by do ing something different? Ah! they are conscious of fail ure. Are they calm and restful -steady in hand and method? Then they believe in themselves. Through all the centuries God has steadily proceeded with the uniform method of revealing himself to men as the means of their salvation —sending proph ets, lawgivers, divine messen gers to tell men the truth, and in the fulness of time sending his Son with more of the truth of God; then leaving that truth to do its own work. Kepler, when he had discov ered the wonderful laws of as tronomy, said, as he sent his book to the press, “I can well wait a hundred years for a read er, since God has waited six thousand years for an observer.” This is God’s testimony to the power of truth. How ample, how sure the words when God’s Word deals with the soul and its needs! “Come unto me”—not you alone, not you who do not know temptation; not you babe in life who have not been harmed by the power of the world; not you philosopher, shielded in your school from contact with the world as it is. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden”—bending under the crushing burden of your heart— “and I will give you rest”—de liverance. That is the divine method. What, then, in conclusion? Why, just see the obligations that arise out of this! The great er the privilege of our position the greater the responsibilities. The greater the love that is shown the greater the abuse. What is the situation to day? It is this: not the holy God appeal ing to a world lying in darkness, but the holy God appealing to a world enlightened, self-respect ing, honest, uprightfaffectionate men, good fathers, good sons, loving mothers; ladies who have honor and dignity; men with manliness for all the work of life except God’s work; who have love and kindness and generosity and patience for every one and for everything in life except God; who open their hearts to all worldly interests that are worthy, but close them against ' VOL. 76-NO. 12 everything thatdirectly concerns God and his gospel. Think of that! If this world, the world about us, should heed, would not the degraded, the heathen world, quickly be won? Now you see what sin is, and the sin of “respectable sin.” This applies to young men brought up in Christian homes, with all that wealth and luxury and education and religion can give to them, having enlightened minds for everything thit the world offers except God; busi ness men proud of their strength and their dignity and force and citizenship; proud as fathers and men and members of the commu nity, but having not one pur pose of allegiance or of love toward the Father in Heaven, who has given to you and is giv ing to you everything that you have to enjoy. Think of this, noi as the answer of the heathen, not as the-amswer of the poor reprobate in the slums of the city, to a God whose names even they have never heard except in curses; but as the answer of men brought up in a Christian atmos phere, sitting, as many of you do, Sabbath after Sabbath, in a Christian church, to the God who has been appealing to you all your lives in the gentle, manly way of peasuasion. What shall we say of such a man? What remains for him who has “counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing,” and “has trodden under foot” the of fered gospel of his God? What more can God do’ What re mains? Is his truth not true? It was my privilege this morn ing to pass in rapid review the twenty five years in which I have been permitted to be a minister of the gospel; but who can put in words the experiences of those years, in the testimony that they have brought to the truth, Jesus Christ, in the home, on the sick bed, by the open grave, in sor row, in temptation, in pain, no less than in joy and in strength and success? The “great multi tude whom no man can number” —young men and maidens, strong men and women, aged men to whom gray hairs have become a “crown of glory,” because they are found in the way of right eousness—all uniting to bear testimony that Jesus Christ is to them life; that the gospel to them is true and that no word of it has failed. Is the message not true? And then as to the bearer — what more can be done? Men everywhere to-day say, “We are convinced; we are not infidels. Why, we have always believed the truth of the gospel.” Yes, but you do nothing for the gos pel/ You must give yourself to the truth. You must repent; you must stop this life away from God and find your life in God. You must open your heart to re spond to persuasion, and then it will come true, as I said at the beginning, that you will see manliness in being persuaded. There is no manliness in doubt. Doubt is paralysis. Delay in the face of the truth is weakness. God summons you—not to in quire, not to parley, not to talk about believing; God summons you every one, dear friends, to believe, and so to be saved. Will you not, then, recognize the truth? Will you not open your hearts to the graciousness of the divine method? Will you not regard the dignity of the appeal of the Lord Jesus Christ, and away with your unbelief, with your parleying, with your pro crastination, and give yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to his cause, with all your heart? Then shall you find peice, for then you shall find God.—Ques tions of Modern Inquiry—Stimson. Our Lord declared, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” How many are there named among believ ers who hunger and thirst after the things of this life —pleasure and profit and passion—to whom would come that more blessed hunger and thirst if they only cease trying to satisfy their spiritual natures with these lower things. But hunger and thirst almost invariably imply two con ditions, a craving want and a knowledge of the things to satis fy. The craving of the soul for something, may yield for the time to 'the supply of sensual food —but he who has “tasted” and “seen” that the Lord is good, and who “feeds” upon his word will find that in that feeding upon the word his soul is filled with the Spirit. Here, then, is the secret of this blessing: The believer absolutely rejects all at tempts at soul-satisfaction with the things of this world and con secratedly setting himself to do God’s service, he feeds upon the blessed word of God and finds that by divine processes there has come into his soul the fulness of the Spirit.— The Standard.