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ESTABLISHED 1821. The Christian Index Cubllanel Every Thurtday By BELL & VAN NEBS Address Christian Index, Atlanta. Ga Organ of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: One copy, one year 12 00 One copy, six months 1.00 About Our Advertisers.—We propose hsreafter to very carefully Investigate our advertisers. We shall exercise every care to allow only reliable parties to use our col nan ns. Obituaries.—One hundred words tree of ebarge. For each extra word, one cent per word, cub with copy. To Cobrespondents—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 sne old as well as the new address. The date Os label indicates the time your subscription •xplree. If you do not wish it continued, or der it stopped a week before. We consider each subscriber permanent until he orders bis paper discontinued. When you order It stopped pay up to date. Remittances by registered letter, money order, postal note. That a Thing May Be Inconceivable is no argument Against its Exis fence. It is quite as difficult to con ceive of a state of eternal happi ness as of a state of eternal woe. We cannot judge of a goal until the goal is reached. An existence of which we have had no experi ence must remain inconceivable. Tlie categories of time and space are so inseparable from our modes of thinking, so inwrought in our experience in the present state, that we cannot conceive of a conscious existence where these do not prevail. The most we can do is to con struct heaven and hell out of fragments of finite experiences, and finite terms must ever be the vehicle by which we translate the infinite —a vehicle totally inade quate. In vain the finite tries to interpret infinite weal or woe. Thought wearies ami swoons in that thin, far air and falls, ex claiming, “Alas, we do not know!” It is just here where we are prone to make the mistake of try ing to utter what Christ left silent, to describe what he never revealed. What Christ left cov ered with the veil of mystery, it is safe and sane for us to leave to him. To those curious about things the angels desire to look into, Christ says: “What is that to thee? Follow thou me.” What God will do we do not know. What he does now is per fectly plain. “He commandeth men everywhere to repent.” Flashing rhetoric and senti mental oratory about the un wearying benevolence of God that will pursue the sinner through immeasurable cycles of purifying discipline till at last he is brought home, are no doubt very captivating; but after all they are nothing more than hu man speculations that cannot change the nature of things. One thing is sure: God cannot invade and force a will and yet leave it free. There can be no self-sur render of a being whom God has placed under the compulsion of necessity. A forced will can never be a free will. Our friends, the final restorationists, are bet ter at rhetoric than at thinking. If God at last merges by might all wills into his own, that is a pantheism which means the spir itual suffocation of every person ality. As I turn away from the morally unfettered words of the preachers of the Larger Hope, I am compelled to say, that any line of religious instruction which takes for its leading principle the notion that the dominant aim of divine revelation is to give to the generality of defiant men a cheer ful and hopeful view of their ulti mate destiny, differs toto caelo from the awful doctrine taught by Christ and his apostles. It seems to me, if we investigate as a historical question what Christ taught, unbiased by our natural liking to think that he taught the things we wish to believe to be true, we find no ground to assert that Christ or his apostles taught anything to strengthen the hope of universal restoration that nat ural religion or sentimental feel ing may have led us to form. There are some problems we can not solve. How the existence of evil can be reconciled with an omnipotent, all-good God, is a problem for which the human mind can find no solution. Step ping aside from the revelation given us in the Gospels, we are back again in the moral twilight of paganism. We lose all expla nation why God should have made us exposed to temptation in this life, if we think it possible that hereafter he can, without annihilating virtue as well as vice, ordain a constitution of things in which inducements to THE CHRISTIAN INDEX. (SUBSCRIPTION, PcaYsRE.- -.te.00. | * .9 y ’TO MINISTERS, 1.00.1 well-doing iS'/ 1 be so overpower ing that shall be im possible. As me may dare limit the mercy of God, so no one can tell to what awful depths the wickedness of man may reach, or what irremediableness may cling to it in the way of natural conse quence. In its own character wickedness possesses no element of cure, nor even of exhaustion. It grows by what it feeds on. It may make a hell on earth, and that, therefore, it may make a hell in the future, everlasting as itself, he must be a rash man who would deny. The solemn facts of the present life are against him. We know the hardening effects of sin here. To assert in the face of Scripture and experience that all men will be saved, is to make an un wa rrantable assertion. But if the holders of the Larger Hope have dogmatized where they had no warrant, their oppo nents have not been behind them upon the other side. Lurid and terrible descriptions of the future state have been dogmatically given. This from Emmons is a good sample: “The happiness of the elect in heaven will, in part, consist in witnessing the tor ments of the damned in hell.” Em mons stated what he did not know. As a matter of fact the day of preaching the punishment by literal fire has gone by, because it is unwarranted by Scripture. None of us like that method which is cited from Emmons. That does not, however, invali date the tremendous doctrine which \ve keep in the background because we follow the methods of the New Testament writers. They do not teach that the wicked shall cease to exist, nor do they teach that they who reject the means of grace which Christ lias provid ed for their restoration to virtue and happiness in this life, may rely on some means provided hereafter, which they cannot re sist. Christ did little more than as sert the fact of the existence of heaven and hell. I am content to let alone what he left unde scribed. He gives warrant to no one to dogmatize here. He has authorized no man to be a judge here. I cannot know what may be between Christ and another soul. Ido not know what is the degree of faith he accepts. I only know he will not do wrong. The thoughtful reader of the New Testair,ent must be impress ed with the astonishing greatness of Christ as he walks through its pages. On one side he comes close and touches men in most intimate human familiarity. The very children draw near to the Man on friendliest terms. On the other side he is mysteriously joined to the heart and power of God. Yonder, by the lake shore, we see him coming into sympa thy with the homely hunger of the multitude, but the next instant the loaf of bread in his hands be comes a manifestation of his in scrutable power. No soul came near him that it did not at once hear the voice of a brother, and yet a voice blending at once with that of divine wisdom. So again in this story, which called forth those deep words in which he claims honor equal with the Fa ther, we behold him coming to that poor cripple there, by the pool of Bethesda —how humanly his sympathy goes out to the poor unfortunate —then instantly commanding, “Arise, take up thy bed and walk!” thus attesting his might of Lordship. Along with that tenderest human sym pathy there was also the blazing out of awful judgment. While we cannot separate his humanity from his divinity, neither can we be blind to the judicial side of his character! What insight into pretensions! What unerring ex posure of motives! What laying bare of disguises! He is not be nevolence only. He is Judge. “Neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath given all judgment unto the Son; that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” It is not morally wise to trifle with his Word. It is not quan tity, but quality of life, that holds before the bar of heaven. He was gone before mid-life; three years, at most, achieved the work of which two thousand years only suffice to begin to show the won drousness. The poor villages of Galilee and the precincts of Je rusalem bounded his steps, and yet before him the front ranks of all mankind, for sixty genera tions, have bent the knee and lis tened to his Word as the ultimate truth of God. He is Judge, be cause he is the manifestation of the one and only morality which is in God. “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” —The Teaching of Christ Con cerning the Future Life—Rev. G. H. Pend Won. For the Index. Reminiscences of Georgia Baptists. BY S. G. HILLYER. No. 12. MRS J. L DAGG. Georgia Baptists include among them many noble women, as well as men, who truly deserve to be remembered. But, because they have lived, for the most part, in retirement, and almost in seclu sion, their pious and self denying labors in the Master’s service have failed to attract the notice of the busy public; and reminis cences of them are, in great meas ure, limited to the sad column of “obituaries” which are often passed unread, save by relatives and a few personal friends. But this neglect has not been intentional.. It has been the nat ural result of the retired lives which our sisters have led. This is especially true of the great ma jority of them who have lived in country homes away from our cities and our towns. Absorbed in their domestic cares, their la bors and their virtues have pass ed, for the most part, unobserved and, therefore, unrecorded. I have already presented in these reminiscences two signal exam ples of our Georgia sisters—Mrs. Rebecca Matthews and Mrs. Cyn thia Sanders—who may well be called “Mothers in Israel.” 1 now propose to give what I remember of Mrs. J. L. Dagg. 1 first met Dr. and Mrs. Dagg in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 1837. But my interview was a brief one. The next time I saw them was soon after Dr. Dagg had taken charge of Mercer University, in 1844. Being associated with Dr. Dagg for nine years in the college, and, at the same time, being his son in-law, 1 had the best opportunity to become intimately acquainted with Mrs. Dagg and to learn, in our frequent conversations, some items of her early life. Her maiden name was Mary Young, and her first hus band was Rev. Noah Davis. And here let me add parenthetically, Mr. Davis was the founder of the American Baptist Publication So ciety. To the development and growth of this society he devoted the latter part of his short but no ble life. In his arduous labors he, no doubt, found a sympathizing helper in his faithful wife. He did not live to see the grand suc cess of what, at first, soemyd to be a bold, but doubtful enter prise. His wife, however, lived to see the prayers and the hopes of her husband realized in the de velopment of the society, which he had founded, into one of the most beneficent publishing houses ever established on this globe. It stands, to-day, second to none, unless it may be to the British and Foreign, and the American Bible Societies. This was the first great work in which Mrs. Davis (afterwards Mrs. Dagg) became an important factor. By the death of her husband Mrs. Davis was left a widow with two little boys upon her hands and her heart. She lived in this sad condition two years or more, when she became the wife of Dr. J. L. Dagg. He, too, had children by a for mer marriage—three daughters and one son. These Mrs. Dagg at once took under her care with the tenderness and faithfulness of a mother. The children, however, had not been neglected during brother Dagg’s widowerhood. He had living with him a maiden sis ter, several years younger than himself. Her name was Sarah. She had the motherless little ones in her charge for seven or eight years. And kindly did she watch over and guide them. They re paid her kindness with an undy ing love. As long as they lived “Aunt Sallie” was a cherished name in all their households. But at length “Aunt Sallie” married and left her brother’s home. Then the care of the children devolved upon Mrs. Dagg, and nobly did she meet its responsibilities. I cannot record the details of her life in Philadelphia, at Had dington, and at Tuscaloosa. It must suffice to say that in all these positions she was a prime factor in the work of her hus band; for it was, in a great de gree, due to her wise and faithful co-operation that he, with his physical infirmities, was able ( to accomplish so much for the ben efit of his own and of succeeding generations. The elements of her character were such as qualified her to be the woman above described. Among these elements was HER CULTURE. Mrs. Dagg was a highly culti vated lady. At Tuscaloosa, she filled the chair of rhetoric in the Atheneum with signal success. She had read much of secular lit erature. And when reading for Dr. Dagg she had the opportunity of reading the best religious lit- ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1896. erature in the English language. In addition to a high mental cul ture she was an accomplished pianist and a most melodious and delightful singer. Again, she was a corfect elocutionist. This gave to her conversation an inexpressi ble charm. Then, as a finishing touch to her accomplishments, she was exceedingly graceful in her manners. Shq understood and observed the proprieties of social life. Had she been so in clined, she was well prepared, with her rich endowments of mind and manners, to adorn the circles of worldly society. But she had no such inclination. And this leads me to speak of HER PIETY. Mrs. Dagg was a Christian; and whatever may have been her fondness for the world in her early girlhood days, when she, at length, put on Christ by baptism, she consecrated herself to a higher and better life than can be found anywhere along the walks of worldly society. She chose rather to be “a companion of all them that fear the Lord, and keep his precepts.” Hence she loved the house of prayer, and the place of public worship. In these she hoped to find the water of life and the bread of heaven that her spiritual strength might be sustained. But Mrs. Dagg was not content to be only a recipient of heavenly grace, but to be also its distribu tor to the extent of her opportu nity. Hence she was ready for any church-work that might be assigned her. She was willing to lead the female prayer-meet ing when it came to her turn; and delighted to gather around her a Bible class of young ladies from the village that she might aid them in the systematic study of the Scriptures. And I venture to say that few Bible classes have ever been more intelligently taught than hers. But her benevolence did not stop at her Bible class. It ex tended to the poor, and to the suffering ones within her reach. Had her means been equal to her good will, this whole world would have been the beneficiary of her charity. During the last years of her life she was afflicted with blind ness. She died during the war at the house of her step-son, Rev. J. F. Dagg. In taking leave of this interest ing I'S of the University of Virginia? He graduated early in the fifties at Mercer University while Dr. Dagg was its President. His subse quent life has conferred honor upon his alma mater, and the friends of Mercer may well be proud of him. Mrs. Dagg’s only daughter, Mrs. R. D. Mallary, of Macon, like her mother, is a most accomplish ed lady, and, like her mother, she has worked with all fidelity with her husband in his arduous la bors. She is a bright illustration of the life and character of her mother. 563 S. Pryor St., Atlanta. For the Index. Preserving Historical Records. BY B. F. RILEY, D D. Baptists have made a history through the centuries of which they might justly feel proud. The difficulty is that while they have made it, others have, for the most part, written it. Much of the disturbance which we now have respecting important his torical data is due to the fact that Baptists have not been so careful as have others in the pre servation of historical records. Much of the history of American Baptists is lost because of this same fact. The origin of the Baptists in some of our older States is not known because rep resentatives of the denomination have not exercised sufficient care in preserving from oblivion much material that could be valuable. Every one who has undertaken chronological investigation along the line of Baptist history has encountered the difficulty of bridging over the chasms because of the absence of materials. While we may lament this de ficiency in denominational his tory, we cannot now altogether remedy it; but we can, at least, preserve the material which is now readily at hand. Hidden away in many dusty shelves in old closets are the records of associa tions, and of conventions in the past, that would help fill the breaches in much of our denomi national history. If these old records could be overhauled by some careful and diligent hand, they would yield much rich ma terial. They reflect the senti ments, the cultures, the views of the different periods of denomi national history. How easy it would be for each association to appoint some competent brother to write the history of that body! Such a mass of material would be all that the historian of the future would desire in the prepa ration of Baptist history, whether of the State, of a given district, or of the entire country. That is one of the means, but it is only one. Another is that of which The Index is availing it self, viz.: Gathering from the richly-stored recollections of old brethren reminiscences of men and events of the stirring periods of the past. Dr. Hillyer and others are not aware of the great value w hich attaches to the work which they are now engaged in. These graphic scenes which find record in the columns of The In dex will become immortal. The publication of such matter will have the effect of stimulating the historic spirit, and old books will be more highly valued than ever before. Dr. W. L. Kilpatrick had ren dered most valuable service to the State before his death in the accumulation of material for the Historical Society. Who will take his place? It is a period of great historical investigation. As fully as possible the history of the denomination, will be written from different points of view. Within the last few years a num ber of valuable historical works relating to the Baptist denomina tion have appeared in different portions of the country. When, through these different works, the merits of the denomination come to be more fully known, our people will be more appreciated, and our youth will cease to es teem others better than our selves. Mr. Colgate, of New York, de serves the gratitude of the de nomination throughout America for the diligence of effort which he has exercised, and still exer cises, in accumulating material in a fire-proof building for the Bap tist historians of the future. No less so does Dr. Lemuel Moss, the President of the Baptist Histori cal Society, the headquarters of which are located in Philadel phia. It will be remembered that the accumulated matter in the archives of this society was consumed by the fire last Febru ary, which destroyed so much of the property of the American Baptist Publication Society. But Dr. Moss is actively engaged in gathering up more material and expects to attend the next meet ing of the Southern Baptist Con lentiiHfcflSßtb A i:Je est of th? so ciety. So that in the enterprise which is being shown by The In dex in the publication of histori cal matter it places itself in the front rank of denominational progress. It cannot render a more lasting service to the de nomination than by encouraging the publication of historical data. I trust that the fathers of the denomination throughout the State may be encouraged to trans mit their recollections to the columns of The Index. This is one of the surest means of pre serving historical records. Seek Advice. BY C. H WETHERBEE. It is a very hopeful sign in any young person who eagerly seeks the advice of others, especially elderly and sensible people. And it is a mark of great weakness in the young man or woman who not only does not do this, but spurns advice when kind friends proffer it. Os course it does not follow that one should always act upon all the advice which he may ob tain by asking, or by proffer. The advice may be intended to be helpful. The giver of it may think that it is just what is need ed, and yet it may not be such as can be presently made use of, or possibly it lacks real fitness. However the case may be, it should be the rule of one’s life to seek the advice of others, and grateful acknowledgment of it should always be made, even when the advice is not suitable nor practicable. One advantage of such a course is that of getting the thoughts, wisdom and sug gestions of others. A compari son of opinions is often worth a great deal. What one person does not think of, another one may. No one is so wise that he cannot learn something more. And one way of learning more is to ask the advice of others, even though they may not know so much on some subjects as you do. Because you know a good deal about a certain subject it is no proof that you know much about other subjects, nor all that is pos sible to be known about the one with which jou are quite famil iar. The young man or woman who asks the most questions con cerning a variety of useful sub jects, and gives receptive heed to the answers, is the one who is most sure to learn rapidly and become practically progressive. It is well to listen even to recog nized fools. We may pick up valuable suggestions from them. Never be guilty of rudely treat ing those whose advice does not meet your approval. Never be above taking the advice of those whom yon regard as your infe riors, either intellectually or so cially. Pen Droppings. BY L. L. V. Four great questions arise in the mind of the thinker as he con templates the world that presents itself to his external senses— what, why, whence, whither? To the first of these those who call themselves scientists have long been laboring to find an answer. It cannot.be averred that their success has been very great. They have crushed stones, and digging into the earth have sought to read the story of Gen esis in its successive formations. With their instruments they have caught the feeble rays that come to us from remote suns, and have decided that the same ele ments that compose our own sphere also make up those far away luminaries. It is fully as certained that the same laws which govern matter on our globe prevail in Uranus and Nep tune, and presumably in the worlds whose existence can be only inferred. It is not unreason able when we thus review how much has been learned, to indu’ge the hope that in the coming ages much more will be learned, and that ere many centuries shall have'rolled away there may be proven to sight and touch that which is now established only by mathematical induction. There has been a partial answer work ed out to that question, What? and it may some day be alto gether satisfactory. But to the other three all the powers of the human intellect are utterly inad equate to work out any reply. For any reply to these fearfully important queries, w r e are wholly dependent on Revelation. In the volume that has been given to us by God is contained all that man may ever know of his origin and destiny. There are those, indeed, w'ho would persuade us that their speculations on these grand themes have led to something akin to knowledge. But nothing that they have been able to offer is a tithe so restful as an implicit reliance upon the divine Word. Here we have all the information given that is needed for the per formance of Ihe duties therein plainlk inu!tlci£d. f < t Praying By Proxy. MRS. ANNA S. PRUITT, CHEFOO, CHINA. I have heard of Christians in America who felt ■ themselves quite too busy to find time for private devotions. The heathen of our village are in a similar sit uation. They have actually no time for looking after religious matters. But they have found an easy way out of their predica ment. They can accomplish the desired object by employing others whose time is less valua ble to perform religious duties for them. The simple matter of foot ing the bill transfers all the vir tue of the good work to the busy sinners. The transgressions of our neighborhood had been accumu lating for nearly a year until re cently one of the wealthy fami lies took steps toward procuring wholesale forgiveness. Now, for several days past, a company of ragged, dirty, licentious priests have been hired to chant prayers and burn incense in the village temple for the spiritual benefit of any w'ho can afford the luxury of vicarious prayer. The village shows no sign of repentance; there is no call for sackcloth or ashes. The priests themselves see no need for even a brief ces sation from their accustomed vices. Their filth and low-living rank them in the very under most crust of society. Their im morality makes them a byword. No respectable people would think for a moment of choosing the vocation for their sons. Yet these same respectable people hope to have their sins forgiven through the intercession of these same priests. Is this the kind of heathenism, faith in which can save its devotees either in this world or the next ? At the Great Judgment. BY V. T. ELY. Many heinous crimes are com mitted wilfully and in cold blood, and when the murderer is brought before the bar of justice to re ceive his reward, he puts in the plea of insanity in order to es cape punishment, and often does escape punishment. But when we go before the great judgment bar of God we cannot put in the plea of insanity. “For the way is so plain that a man, though a fool, need not err therein.” Thomasville, Ga. VOL. 76-NO. « For the Imdix/' Baptist Position Stated and Contrast ed—Strict Construction. BY Q. A. LOFTON, D.D. Alli. Baptists are not “literalists,” but “strict constructionists.” They abhor literalizing on the one hand and spiritualizing every thing in God’s Word on the other. Canipbellisiu is largely the em bodiment of literalization; and Hardshell-Baptist-ism illustrates spiritualization. Campbe lli sin turns figures into facts; the Hard shell turns facts into figures. Canipbellisiu, like Catholicism and all the forms of ritualism, literalizes the symbolism of bap tism into saving efficacy; and it is a wonder that Campbellism has not so regarded the Lord’s Sup per. The Hardshell does not so regard the ordinances; but it spiritualizes away all the truths which would militate against his Antinomian theory. For instance, the “word” by which God of his own will begat us is made to mean the personal Christ, in or der to avoid the theory 7 that no man can be converted without sending the Gospel to him. The Quakers spiritualize even the or dinances or symbols of the Gos pel, baptism and the Lord’s Sup per; and so of all the positive or external institutions of Christ, thus getting rid of every duty or obligation of outward obedience to God through organic or cere monial channels. So much for literalization which takes the letter without the spirit, and which leads to sterility and death in religion; and so much for spiritualization which takes the spirit without the letter and leads to all the hallucinations of fanaticism in the world. Baptists have noth ing to do with either side of these errors in the interpretation of God’s Word. Where language is literal according to the rules of rhetoric, we so interpret it; and where language is figurative, by the same rule we find figures. When it comes to the interpreta tion of language, getting at the meaning of words and the con struction of sentences, Baptists treat the Bible as they treat any other book; and we do not take the position that language, as language, has any ground mean ing in the Bible different from the ground meaning of language foupd uaywhere else in lite.cotffre. Repentance, faith, pardon, justifi cation, regeneration, sanctifica- , tion, predestination, baptism, supper, church—all these words mean in English or New Testa ment Greek just what they mean in classic Greek, with a new appli cation to religious ideas. It is very convenient for pedobaptism to admit that baptizo always means to dip in classic Greek, but in New Testament Greek it as sumes a new and sacred signifi cation, and therefore, under the head of “purify,” it may mean sprinkle, pour, immerse or any thing else, or nothing, as you have a mind to interpret. Hence there is another head under which Baptists stand at variance with others in the in terpretation or construction of God’s Word. We construe strict ly, as opposed to liberally, the lan guage of Scriptures, especially in the sphere of positive laws and in stitutions. In other w’ords, we want the language of the Bible to say what it means, and mean what it says; and we want a thus saith the Lord for every article of faith binding upon con science as a matter of belief and duty. We have no right to estab lish divine laws for the govern ment of God’s people by infer ence from God’s Word, however much we may be compelled, some times, to infer as to the meaning of law's, precepts, doctrines, prin ciples and practices set up in God’s Word. Where language is ambiguous, or obscure, we have a right to infer its meaning; but in all such cases w r e have no right to dogmatic interpretation, and we have less right to set up laws and institutions binding on con science by inference from such language. What is not clearly revealed, or is dimly concealed, is not a matter of law, but only of opinion; and what is not re vealed as a matter of law binding on the conscience, is simply for bidden as law and opinion both. For instance, the New Testa ment shows neither precept nor example for infant baptism. It is expressly clear as to the law of believers' baptism; and in the ab sence of any precept or example for infant baptism, the positive law' for the baptism of believers only, forbids infant baptism as a law fastened upon the church of God. But it is inferred that bap tism comes in the place of circum cision, and that the church is identical under both the legal and Gospel dispensation; therefore,