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ESTABLISHED 18'L TheGhristianlndex t’ubinhßl Every Thursday By BELL & VAN NEWS Address Christian Index, Atlanta, tia Organ of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia. SUBSCRIPTION PRICK: One copy, one year 12.0 One copy, six mouths l.Oy About Our Advertisers.—We propose hereafter to very carefully Investigate our advertisers. We shall exercise every care to allow only reliable parties to use our col umns. Obituaries.—One hundred words free of aharge. For each extra word, one cent per word, cash with copy. To Oorjikspondknts—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 Affloes distinctly. In ordering a change give the old as well as the new address. The date Os label Indicates the time your subscription expires. If you do not wish itoontlnued,or der It stopped a week before. We consider tach subscriber permanent until he orders Ills paper discontinued. When you order It stopped pay up to date. Remittances by registered letter, money order postal note. Self-Mastery. The American minister at St. Petersburg was summoned one morning to save a young, disso lute, reckless American youth. Poe, from the penalties incurred in a drunken debauch. By the minister’s aid young Poe returned to the United States. Not long after this the author of the best story and poem competed for in the Baltimore Visitor was sent for, and behold, the youth who had taken both prizes was that same dissolute, reckless, penni less, orphan youth, who had been arrested in St. Petersburg—pale, ragged, with no stockings, and with his threadbare, but well brushed coat buttoned to the chin to conceal the lack of a shirt. Young Poe took fresh courage and resolution, and for a while showed that he was superior to the apetite which was striving to drag him down. But, alas, that fatal bottle! his mind was stored with riches, yet he died in moral poverty. This was a soldier’s epi taph: '* Here Iles a s lltiler whom al! must applaud. Who fought many battles at home and abroad: But the hottest engagement he ever was in. Was tae conquest of self, In the tattle of sin. - ’ • In 1860, when a committee vis ited Abraham Lincoln at his home in Springfield, 111., to notify him of his nomination as President, he ordered a pitcher of water and glasses, "that the)' might drink each other’s health in the best beverage God ever gave to man.” “Let us,” he continued, “make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the temperance pledge as for husbands to wear their wives’ bonnets in church, and instances will be as rare in one case as the other.” Burns exercised no control over his appetites, but gave them the rein: “Thus thoughtless follies laid him low And stained his name.” “The first and best of victories,” says Plato, “is for a man to con quer himself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful and vile.” Self-control is at the root of all the virtues. Let a man yield to his impulses and passions, and from that moment he gives up his moral freedom. “Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasurable,” says Wal ter Scott, “and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.” Stonewall Jackson, early in life, determined to conquer every weakness he had —physical mental, and moral, lie held all of his powers with a firm hand. To his great self-discipline and self mastery he owed his success. So determined was he to harden himself to the weather that he could not be induced to wear an overcoat in winter. “I will not give in to the cold,” he said. For a year, on account of dyspepsia, he lived on buttermilk and stale bread, and wore a wet shirt next his body because his doctor ad vised it, although everybody else ridiculed the idea. This was while he was professor at the Vir ginia Military Institute. His doctor advised him to retire at 9 o’clock; and, no matter where he was, or who was present, he always sought his bed on the minute. He adhered rigidly through life to this stern system of discipline. Such self-training, such self-conquest, gives one great power over others. It is equal to genius itself. It is a good plan to form the habit of ranking our various qualities, marking our strongest point one hundred and all the others in proportion, in order to make the lowest mark more ap parent, and enabling us to try to raise or strengthen it. A man’s industry, for example, may be his strongest point, one hundred; his physical courage may be fifty; his moral courage, seventy-five; his temper, twenty-five; with but ten for self-control —which, if he has strong appetites and passions THE CHRISTIAN INDEX. I SUBSCRIPTION, hiTuv 52.00. | » , ITO MINISTERS, 1.00.1 will lie i/.ely to be the rock on which he will split. He should strive in every way to raise it from one of the weakest qualities to one of the strongest. It would take but two or three minutes a day to rank ourselves in such a table by noting the exercise of each faculty for the day. If you have worked hard and faithfully, mark industry one hundred. If you have lost your temper, and, in consequence, lost your self-con trol, and made a fool of yourself, indicate it by a low mark. This will be an incentive to try to raise it the next day. If you have been irritable, indicate it by a corresponding mark, and redeem yourself on the morrow. If you have lucn cowardly where you should have been brave, hesitat ing where you should have shown decision, false where yon should have been true, foolish where you should have been wise, tardy where you should have been prompt; if you have prevaricated where you should have told the exact truth; if you have taken the advantage where you should have been fair, have been unjust where you should have been just, impatient where you should have been patient, cross where you should have been cheerful, So in dicate by your marks. You will find this a great aid to character building. It is a subtle and profound re mark of Hegel’s that the riddle which Hie Sphinx, the Egyptian symbol of the mysteriousness of nature, profounds to Oedipus is only another way of expressing the command of the Delphic ora cle, “Know thyself.” And when the answer is given the Sphinx casts herself down from her rock. When man knows himself, the mysteriousness of nature and her terrors vanish. The command by the ancient oracle at Delphos is of eternal significance. Add to it its natu ral complement —help thyself— and the path to sucess is open to those who obey. Guard your weak point. Moral contagion borrows fully half its strength from the weakness of its victims. Have you a hot, pas sionate temper? If so, a mo ment’s outbreak, like a rat-hole in a dam, may flood all the work of years. One angry word some times raises a storm that time Hsrii Ciinuol allay. A single an gry word has lost many a friend. A Quaker was asked by a mer chant whom he had conquered by his patience how he had been able to bear the other’s abuse, and re plied: “Friend, I will tell thee. I was naturally as hot and vio lent as thou art. I observed that men in a passion always speak loud, and I thought if I could control my voice I should repress my passion. I have, therefore, made it a rule never to let my voice rise above a certain 'key, and by a careful observance of this rule, I have, by the bless ing of God, entirely mastered my natural tongue.” Mr. Christmas, of the Bank of England, explains that the secret of his self-control under very trying circumstances was due to a rule learned from the great Bitt, never to lose his temper during banking hours — from nine to three. When Socrates found in him self any disposition to anger, he would check it by speaking low, in opposition to the motions of his displeasure. If you are con scious of being in a passion, keep your mouth shut, lest you in crease it. Many a person has dropped dead in a rage. Fits of anger bring fits of disease. “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” “Keep cool,” says Webster; “anger is not argument.” “Be calm in ar guing,” says George Herbert, “for fierceness makes error a fault and truth discourtesy.” To be angry with a weak man is to prove that you are not strong yourself. “Anger,” says Pytha goras, “begins with folly and ends with repentance.” You should measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he subdues, not by the power of those which subdue him. De Leon, a distinguished Span ish poet, after lying years in dun geons of the Inquisition, dreary, and alone, without light, for translating part of the Scriptures into his native tongue, was re leased and restored to his profes sorship. /V great crowd thronged to hear his first lecture, out of curiosity to learn what he might say about his imprisonment. But the great man merely resumed the lecture which had been so cruelly broken off five years be fore, just where he left it, with the words “Heri discebamus” (yesterday we were teaching). What a lesson in this remarkable example of self-control for those who allow their tongues to jabber whatever happens to be upper most in their minds! —Architects of Fate, or Steps to Success and Power —Marden. ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY. DECEMBER 10. 1806. For the Index. Princeton and its Sequlcentennlal Celebration. BY P. I) POLLOCK, CHAIRMAN OF FACULTY MERCER UNIVERSITY. In the recent sesqui-centennial celebration at Princeton, the memories of a hundred and fifty years have been brought out by the distinguished men who par ticipated in the ceremonies of that occasion, and by others in the public magazines. Professor Hibben. an alumnus of Princeton, has written an arti cle for the October Forum, in which he speaks with enthusiasm and pride of the part played by tjie college in the American revolution. He begins his arti cle with a quotation from Green’s “History of the English People,” to the’effect that “the democratic spirit of the universi ties was a constant protest against feudalism. Oxford es poused the cause of the barons against the crown; and the Uni versity of Glasgow was almost annihilated during the Reforma tion because of its Protestant partisanship. And such a spirit has not only characterized the history of the universities in Scotland and England, but, on the continent as well, the aca demic centers have always been the promoters of freedom and progress. This was manifested in the long struggle for demo cratic government in France, in the war for Italian unity, and at the present in the university towns of Russia, where the stu dents have fostered that spirit of enlightenment which is moving mightily toward the establish ment of a constitutional govern ment, and the realization of the will of the people.” He speaks, with an admiration which he takes no pains to conceal, of the stalwart figure of Witherspoon, who was president of the college preceding and during the revolu tionary period. He quotes from a letter of James Madison, of the class of 1771, and afterwards President of the United States, to show the prevailing spirit among the students of the insti tution to some of the great ques tions that were stirring the public heart preceding the Revolution. “We have no public news but the base conduct of the merchants in Ne.w York in breaking through their spirited resolutions not to import; a distinct account of which I suppose will be in the Virginia Gazette before this ar rives. The letter to the mer chants in Philadelphia request ing their concurrence, was lately burned by the students of this place in the college yard, all of them appearing in their black gowns and the bell tolling. There are about 115 in the college and the grammar school, and all of them in American cloth.” Fred erick Frelinghuysen, of the class of 1770, and afterwards United States Senator, is quoted as say ing, when he left college at the time of his graduation, “I have learned patriotism in Princeton as well as Greek.” The author attributes the famous resolutions which were passed in Mecklen burg county, in North Carolina, a year before the Declaration of Independence was signed, “pledg ing ‘life, fortune and sacred honor’ to the country’s need,” to the influence of three Princeton graduates, who had churches in North Carolina. Their author, and the secretary of the conven tion adopting these resolutions, was Ephriam Brevard, a gradu ate of Princeton, of the class of 1768, and in his efforts to secure their adoption he was ably sec onded by two other Princeton graduates, Balch and Avery, of lhe class of 1766. The Declara tion of Independence itself was signed by Witherspoon, Prince ton’s president, and two of the alumni. The part that Princeton played in the Constitutional Con vention is given also at length in the article. Os the fifty-five members composing this Consti tutional Convention, thirty-two were men of college or university training. There were one each from London, Oxford, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, five from William and Mary, one from the University of Pennsylvania, two from Columbia, three from Harvard, four from Yale and nine from Princeton. On the same ocasion, however, several notable addresses were delivered, but in the main they emphasized the function to be performed upon our civilization by all such institutions, if they are to prove themselves worthy of their trust. One of the most no /able of these addresses was delivered by Professor Woodrow Wilson, the general topic of which was “The World’s Memory,” emphasizing the fact that there is no more im portant task to be performed by the college than that of drawing the attention of its students to the past, and encouraging them to a sympathetic understanding of its lessons. “Unschooled men have only their habits to remind them of the past, only their de sires and instinctive judgments of what is to guide them in the future; the college should serve the state as its organ of recollec tion, its seat of vital memory. It should give to the country men who know the probabilities of failure and success, who can sep arate the tendencies which are permanent from the tendencies which are of the moment merely, wno can distinguish promises from threats, knowing the life men have lived, the hopes they have tested, and the principles they have proved.” With a force of logic and eloquence rarely surpassed in a public address, this thought of keeping alive the world’s memory, the danger of breaking with the past, of disre garding the teachings of history, and the danger of rejecting the experiences of the past, because of tlie important lessons they have for us—all of these things were brought out with great power. A not that is clearly emphasized in this part of the ad dress is, that those who do not sympathize with the past, who would not learn its lessons, and who would once for all be free from its shackles, that these are those who do not really under stand .the essential and funda mental principles which should guide us now; that these are those who would be inclined rather to look upon the principles of social organization, upon cer tain fundamental principles of State, upon economic laws, as merely whims and caprices; mat ters of fashion that can be put on and off, according to the varying moods of the populace. He sees in such unwise and one-sided judgments certain dangers, which, if they are cured at all, must be cured by the conserva tive college man, made conserva tive by his training, conservative because he can see the world in a broad perspective; who, knowing the past with its lesons, may hope to solve wisely the problems of the present as relalgß to the problems of the pasWpd the fu ture. But by far the niombeantiful tiling in the s < I •■■ii : W thought, of is the passage in which he, in general terms, speaks of the great function and mission of the col lege. “I have had sight of the perfect place of learning in my thought; a free place, and a vari ous, where no man could be and not know with how great a des tiny knowledge had come into the world —itself a little world; but not perplexed, living with a sin gleness of aim not known with out ; the home of sagacious men, hard-headed, and with a will to know, debaters of the world’s questions every day, and used to the rough ways of democracy; and yet a place removed —calm science seated there, recluse, as cetic, like a nun, not knowing that the world passes, not caring if the truth but came in answer to her prayer; and literature, walk ing within her open doors, in quiet chambers, with men of old en time, storied walls about her, and calm voices infinitely sweet; here ‘magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn,’ to which you may withdraw and use your youth for pleasure; there windows open straight upon the street, where many stand and talk intent upon the world of men and business. A place where ideals are kept in heart in an air they can breathe, but no fools’ paradise. A place where to hear lhe truth about the past, and hold debate upon the affairs of the present, with knowledge and without passion; like the world in having all men’s lives at heart, but unlike the world in its self-possession, its thorough way of talk, its care to know more than the moment brings to light; slow to take ex citement, its air pure and whole some, with a breath of faith; every eye within it bright in the clear day, and quick to look to ward heaven for the confirmation of its hope.” I have been lead as never be fore to think of the real mission of a great institution of learning how rich its opportunities, how i ital its manifold relations to the history of the world, how glori ous its hopes, as related to all things good and great. I have glanced over the record of that host of students sent out from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, a host of more than thirty thousand men of strong, vigorous intellects and glowing hearts, not to speak of the multitude that might be added to these from other insti tutions whose history is confined to a shorter period. I have look ed at the literary record of the New England States. I find such names as Holmes, Emerson, Lowell, etc., and I have wonder ed if the history of Harvard were written, would it not be a history of literature. I have looked again at the long line of statesmen who so have illustrated and dignified the history of our Country, and I have wondered if the history of Harvard is not the history of statesmanship. Thi'i 1 have look ed at the long line of consecrated men, their hearts aglow witli love of the truth, with a joyous desire to promulgate the Gospel, and I have wondered if the his tory of Harvard is not the history of the church. I have likewise gone through the records of Yale and Princeton, and the same questions have presented them selves with renewed fotee, and have led me to exclaim, How won derful and glorious a part the colleges have played in the his tory of our nation! Dr. Tliwing lias said that one out of forty of all the college men of the country have deserved- a memorial more or less perma nent, while one out of ten thou sand only who have not had col lege training have deserved such a memorial. The chances, there fore, for great service, for a life filled with great power and pre eminent usefulness to one’s age, are two hundred and fifty to one in favor of tlie college man. I have just been looking through the long record of grad uates at Mercer. Our brother Bernard, who has lovingly exam ined the records, feels convinced that the history of Mercer has been pre-eminently a history of missions. This is undoubtedly true in a marked degree. Great movements in the life of the church and the life of the denom ination in the South cannot be written, without writing the bi ography, now and then, of a Mer cer graduate. But as I look through the long list of names of men who have served with honor and distinc tion in councils of war and in the offices of State, the history of the institution is also a history of statesmanship. Literature also has in its records the names of men who have been students at Mercer. But the influence of the institution in the lives of the men who have been sent out has gone further than in the respects Ke iirfW-MC' in the respects nTOied can in a measure be deli nitely traced, because it grows out of high positions and public offices, and thus its concrete ef fects can be in a measure ascer tained. To these influences, however, must be added the wise, conservative, gracious and un seen influence of our graduates in what men call the humbler callings of life, such as com merce, agriculture, etc. The sum total, however, is progress, safe and sound to the core, not nar row and foolish, but broad in sentiment, discriminating in judgment, hopeful and Christian in purpose. God grant that Mercer may continue to be a lov ing, gracious, powerful and re deeming force in bearing aloft the light of truth, and in subduing, through her children, the world to righteousness in thought and action. Mercer University. For the INDEX. Reminiscences of Georgia Baptists. BY S. G. HILLYER. No. 18. THE SUNBURY BAPTIST CHURCH. Sunbury was settled in 1758, about one hundred and thirty eight years ago. It was located on the northeast border of Liberty county, upon a high bluff that is washed by Midway river. That bluff fronts nearly east, so that one standing upon it can look down the wide river out into the Atlantic ocean, twelve miles dis tant. A more beautiful view of land and water can hardly be found along our Georgia sea boa rd. Sunbury once promised to be more prosperous than it proved to be. In the beginning of this, or the close of the last century, square rigged vessels were often seen in its beautiful harbor. But it was not able to com pete with its elder sister, Savan nah. Moreover, it was soon dis covered that Hie water over its bar was too shallow to admit larger vessels; so its commercial advantages soon dwindled away to almost nothing. For these reasons the popula tion never, perhaps, exceeded 500 white citizens. These were, for the most part, people whose plan tations, scattered around on both sides of Midway river, afforded them the means of living together in Sunbury for the sake of social, educational and religious privi leges. In the year 1801, there was not a Baptist in Sunbury. The relig ious part of the community were members of the Congregational church that worshiped at Midway meting-house ten miles from Sunbury. A little later than 1801, Mr. Charles O. Screven became a cit izen of Sunbury. He inherited a tine (‘state. It lay across the river in Bryan county almost in sight of Sunbury. He was a man of fine education, of deep piety, and a Baptist; and lie had also been licensed to preach by the Baptist church in Charleston, S. C. As he looked around upon the condition of things in Sun bury, his spirit had no rest. He soon made arrangements to preach to Hie people. This he continued for a season; but being only a licensed preacher, he con cluded to apply for ordination to the church in Charleston of which, I suppose, he was still a member. Accordingly he was ordained by authority of that church, and returned to Sun bury fully authorized to perform all the functions of a Gospel min ister. His labors were tin remitted. His first converts were several negroes. But there was no Bap tist church at that time, perhaps, nearer than Savannah which they could join. lie, therefore, sent for Mr. Clay, who was then pas tor of the church in Savannah, to come out to Sunbury and help him witli his presence and his counsel. These two ministers ex amined tlie colored converts and decided that they should be bap tized. And Mr. Screven perform ed the service. Other colored converts were soon added to these, and in about two years seventy persons were baptized, among whom were only two whites —Mr. Jacob Dunham and his wife. With these converts, all being colored people except two, the Sunbury Baptist church was con stituted. Exactly at what date it constituted, I do not find dis tinctly stated, but I infer it was somewhere between 1806 and 1810. The white element in the church soon began to increase, and in a few years it included a goodly number of intelligent white people. I did not know Dr. Charles O. Screven personally. He died in July, 1830, and my acquaintance with the Sunbury church began in January, 1832, about eighteen mnr.ihs afi» r his duith. Vnt I knew Mrs. Screven, who survived him, many years. I knew also his sons and daughters, and many whom he had baptized; and among these was Rev. J. 11. Campbell, to whom I am indebt ed for much of what has been said about Dr. Screven in the foregoing paragraphs. In 1832 Sunbury was a small village. There were probably not more than two hundred peo ple that were actual residents. These were divided, religiously, between the Congregationalists and Baptists. The former were members of Midway church ten miles from Sunbury. The Bap tists had their meeting-house in the village. In 1832 there was in the Sun bury church an interesting group of Baptists. They were not nu merous, for, leaving out the col ored people, the whole white membership was very small. But of these there were quite a num ber who richly deserved to be re membered. The oldest one of this group was REV. SAMUEL S. LAW. There were several branches of the Laws in that region of coun try who were the kindred of Rev. Samuel Law. They were, how ever, for the most part, Congre gationa lists, or Presbyterians, or Episcopalians. Indeed, lam sure that brother Law was the first of his name that became a Baptist. He was led to do so by a thorough examination of the Scriptures that he might find out what the Lord would have him to do. His wife, it is true, several years be fore, had joined the Baptist church; but he was very much averse to her doing so. He said to her, “You may do as you please; but remember, when I be come a Christian, I shall join an other church.” He became a Christian rather late in life. 11 is means enabled him to associate with the “gen try” of the seaboard; and for something more than forty years, he was a man of the world. At length, however, he began to think about God and the world to come. He first tried, as 1 learn from Dr. J. H. Campbell, to make his peace with God by a strict practical morality. He worked along this line faithfully for a time, but it brought him no comfort. Presently his distress became intense. He discovered that, in spite of his morality, he was a great sinner. He then turned to the Gospel, and with prayer and supplication he sought the w'ay of salvation VOL. 76-NO. through its teachings. Then it was not long before he found peace with God, not by his mor ality, but by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood cleans eth us from all sin. It was then, throwing aside the bias of his ear ly years acquired in his father’s family, who was an Episcopalian, he sought his duty in the Word of God. The result was he ap plied for baptism at the Baptist church. He was baptized in April, 1815, by Dr. C. O. Screven. Brother Law’s experience (I have given only a sketch of it) is intensely interesting in all its de tails. We see in it an unregen erate heart, a strong mind and a resolute will endeavoring to find another path to heaven than the one marked out for us by the New Testament. This is a common mistake with the unconverted. Bro. Law’s experience illustrates its utter futility. He found his garment of self-righteousness woven of his boasted morality “a filthy rag.” But he was led at last to tlie Rock that was higher than he. Then he could adopt the words of the poet and sing: “ My hope Is built on nothing less Thun Jesus’ blood and righteousness; 1 dare not trust the s »eetest frame, But wholly lean on J sus’s namt; On Ch. Ist, the solid Roek I stand, All other ground Is sinking sand.” Having joined the church, he became, at once, an active Chris tian —so much so that his breth ren soon called him to ordination. From that time to the end of his life he was a devoted, self-deny ing and useful preacher. His ed ucation was very limited, but he knew his Bible. He knew the God whom it revealed, and com prehended the great scheme of human redemption by the gift of his beloved Son, “that whosoever believeth in him should not per ish, but have eternal life.” With this preparation he went forth upon a laborious service. He served various churches, and af ter Dr. Screven’s death he was pastor for a year or two of the Sunbury church. But I would specially empha size brother Law’s faithful labors among the colored people. He was to them as a messenger from heaven. The churches which he served abounded with them; and those humble people heard him gladly. It has been said of him, by one who knew him well, that his chief design, in consenting to be ordained, was that he might preach the Gospel to the .negroes. They had the privilege, is true, of attending the morning service with the white people—at least as many of them as could find room in the house. But many were excluded by the want of room. To meet this difficulty he would often preach in the after noon to the negroes only, and then they would fill the house to its utmost capacity. We do not know and can never know till . we get to heaven how many chil dren of the “uark continent” this great and good man led to Jesus. Such was the work of Samuel Spry Law, one of the worthy men of the Sunbury church who de serves to be held in affectionate remembrance along with the sainted Screven, by Georgia Bap tists. 563 S. Pryor St., Atlanta. For the Index. To Your Own Hurt. BY C. H. WETHERBE. God says through Jeremiah: “Ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord, that ye might pro voke me to anger with the work of your hands, to your own hurt.” No one ever yet sinned against God without doing so to his own hurt. It is certainly a very bad thing to sin against God. It hurts his feelings. It provokes him. Wilful rebellion angers him. And yet no one is so badly hurt by sin as the sinner himself. And it is none the less hurtful when the sinner does not realize its injury upon himself than it is when he is sensible of the hurt. One effect upon the sinner of his sinning is its benumbing power. Sin paralyzes the spiritual facul ties. It callouses the finer sensi bilities of the soul. He who ha bitually tells falsehoods, not only sins against God, but he fearful ly hurts himself. He hardens his heart. He paralyzes his con science. He destroys his useful ness. He loses self-respect and forfeits the respect of others. A liar may injure others by his falsehoods, where his true char acter is not known, and yet it is not long before his sin finds him out and hurts him all the more. And the tattler always hurts himself by his mischievous tale bearing. One cannot make a practice of retailing gossip around the neighborhood without hurting himself. He hurts others, but he hurts himself the most. And the same principle applies to all manner of evil doing. It is a universal law that no one can exclude from himself the entire effects of his wrong-doing. Take heed to yourself!