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ESTABLISHED 1821. The Christian Index t’ub'J»h«l Krery Thursday By HELL Jt VAN NKt*B ACdrens CHRISTIAN INDEX. Atlanta, Ua Jrgaii of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia Bubschiption Prior: One copy, one year.. 12.r0 One copy, six months l.<o About OCR Advertiser#.—W>■ 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 sharge. For each extra word, one cent per word, cash with copy. To Cok.iiesfoni>knth— I'o not use abbrevi ations; be extra careful in writing proper names: write with Ink. on one side of paper. 1?O not write copy Intended for the editor and business Items on same sheet. Leave bft personalities, condense. Business.—Write alt names, and post v fflcea distinctly. Inordering achange give she old as well ae the new address. The date a< label indicates the time your subscription sxplres. If you do not wish It continued, or der It stopped a week before We consider each subscriber permanent until he orders ill paper discontinued. When you order It stopped pay up to date. Kkmittancks by registered letter, money order, postal note For the INDEX. An Appeal to the Baptists of Georgia to Establish an Institution Wnhin Their Bounds tor the Higher Edu cation of Their Young Men. BY ALEXANDER. Baptists of Georgia: The writer of this appeal is a pastor of one of your churches. His heart is profoundly interest ed in your welfare and earnestly desirous for your prayers and prosperity. He has meditated deeply and for many years upon some of the thoughts in this ex hortation. He is known to but few of you personally. He is greatly in love with you. He has for a long time considered you the best set of Baptists in all this land of ours. He admires your orthodoxy, is encouraged by your unity along many lines of Christian enterprise and wonder fully inspired by the number of your leaders, men of culture, zeal and power. He has often won dered why such a vast host of ■Christians, believing in the abso lute supremacy of God's Word, and the infallibility of Christ’s promise, were not more effective in the service of our Master! 11,is heart has been deeply grieved, as he contemplated the possibilities of your strength, and then thought of how little you were doing. He is sure that you love your Lord, he knows you are true to the great doctrines of grace; and because of all these facts he feels constrained to say these things to yon, ‘‘to stir up your pure minds byway of remem brance.” My brethren, a great crisis is upon us. We stand face to face with issues so grave that our per petuity as Baptists depends upon our proper appreciation of and our correct solution of these is sues. It is no longer a question of choice, the duty is imperative. To fail now is to be relegated, as a people, to ignorance, decay and destruction. We need an institu tion of learning for the higher ed ucation of our boys. God commands it. His will is that we as his people shall glorify him in everything. By the very conditions of our acceptance of his grace we be came wholly his. We gave our selves entirely to him. “We are notour own; we have been bought with a price.” Not to use our energies and powers for him is to be guilty of spiritual embezzle ment. We are under the most solemn sanction to develop to the highest possible usefulness every force of our mental, physi cal and spiritual being, to avail ourselves of every opportunity to better fit our lives for his service. Our environments demand it. It is an age of the human mind's greatest activity. Men are, as never, before, engaged in search ing ont the great facts of the uni verse. The science of the world is probing after the very secrets of God’s being. The so-called ad vanced thought has laid its im pious touch upon the Word of God and questions the utterances of the Holy Spirit. The infidelity of the hour, exultant in the strength of trained intellects, boldly challenges Christianity to open conflict. The writer of this has no fears for the Word of God. As the Lord is eternal his Word will endure forever. But the ten dency of the day is to lead young men to think that culture and Christianity are incompatible; that to be scholarly is to be skep tical. We need an institution manned by men loyal to God and his Word, to train the minds of our boys so that the world may know that one can be devoted to science and to Christ at the same time; that one can be devel oped in the gymnasium of thought, panoplied with the world’s greatest knowledge and THE CHRISTIAN INDEX. nevertheless be faithful to God, loyal to Christ and submissive to the guidance of his Spirit. Men, who having grappled with the masters of science, are able to make plain that nowhere is there any conflict between natural laws and the Word of God. Our relations to God and the world make this duty imperative. Baptists teach some truths that can be learned from no one else. Some great principles of human liberty, some fundamental truths of God's saving grace, some expo sition of God's Word must be taught by Baptists if the world ever knows them at all. The lib erty of conscience, the right of every individual io judge for him self in matters of religion, regen erated membership, the suprem acy of God's Word, the autonomy of the local church, and the indi vidual freedom of every member are taught alone by the Baptists. If we do not teach them nobody else will. It requires the whole Word of God to make a man free, and we alone hold to all of that Word. Our duty to our children prompts it. It is an age when they will be taught. Baptists cannot afford for anybody to teach their children but them selves. To make this enterprise a suc cess requires money, men and boys. Money to build houses, provide appliances and afford means for needy young num to secure an education. Men to fill the places of teachers; boys for the classes. Baptists of Georgia have all these. Money in abund ance. men well equipped for work waiting for your bidding, boys ea ger to enter the moment the doors are open. Brethren, are we equal to the emergency? To us the school means much of power. First of all. it means unity; not centralization, but unity ; oneness of thought, of pur pose, of faith, of methods. It means a united host of consecrat ed and trained men keeping step in the march against the powers of darkness under the leadership of a Captain who is almighty and invincible. Do tve value this opportunity ? An op portunity in the work of God is where man’s necessities and God’s omnipotence meet. It came to the children of Is rael at the Red sea when they were pre.-sed by their enemies behind, and God said, “Go for ward,” and they obeyed, and lo! a people was disenthralled and a nation born. It came when they stood on the margin of the Prom ised Land and listened to the evil report of the spies, and for forty years had to wander in the wil derness. It came to the church atJerusalem when theHolySpirit descended, and she remained un faithful to the command to go and preach everywhere, and God's judgment of persecution scattered her membership to the four winds. It came to the church atAntioch when the Spirit said, “Separate Barnabas and Saul unto the work which I have called them,” and the church responded and Asia and Europe were brought to the feet of Jesus. If we know the times of our visitation this insti tution means victory, the truth triumphant, Christ exultant, heaven rejoiced, and God glori fied. If we close our eyes to the presence of our Lord and deafen our ears to the calls of the Holy Spirit it means to us the hand of God's judgment in the scat tering of our forces, and our wan dering in the wilderness of ig norance and lethargy for forty years. For the Index. Mercer University and Secondary Education. BY CHAIRMAN P. D. POLLOCK. A.M. The present educational condi tions in the State are far from ideal. In the development of those forces . which enter into the bone and sinew of education at large, as it approaches the ideal the higher institutions must play an important part. In this work Mercer has had in the past an honorable share and wishes to be of greater service in the future. The secondary schools generally in the State have done fine service. The increased appropriations, by the legislature just adjourned, for the better support and equipment of the common school system of the State is a matter of congrat ulation to all who appreciate the vital relation which an educated citizenship bears to every social, civil, moral and religious interest among us. That abstract fabric of manifold and subtle human elements, which we call civiliza tion, must rest ultimately upon intellect trained for methodical and skilled service, and upon emotion and volition educated into harmony with the thought, purpose and will of a beneficent God. It is chiefly to the latter that we must trust for regener- ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY. JANUARY 7. 1897. at ing and redeeming power. In tellect may be, is in fact oftimes, revolutionary and riotous. The State, as well as the individual, must have a conscience. Faith, hope, the brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of God—love in the larger and richer sense must be come our food and drink. Men will then become knights of the Holy Ghost, and States will be come divine Galilees for valiant knights-errant in the cause of the holy chivalry id' “peace on earth, good will toward men.” But you say this is highly ideal. I answer, the ideal is the real in the ft ■ A- o 008 * sOSI a MERGER UNIVERSITY, MACON, GA. true sense; and it should be the mission of every higher institu tion of learning to enlist vig orous manhood and womanhood in the service of the ideal as founded upon Christ and the higher and richer interpretation of his life and words than the world has yet accepted, or can yet com prehend. The State may endow the com mon schools with money, but who must endow them with men and women to teach them ? The State may create the machinery; this is indeed its duty. Its failure* in this particular has been almost crim inal, has been, in fact, to our shame and confusion. But where is the philosopher’s stone that must turn its money into brain and heart power? It is not the hopeful,prayerful and heroicband of teachers who must define the real value of the money expend ed; who must weigh the heart throbs estimate, direct and shape the intellectual and spiritual forces of childlife which are to become posi tive forces for good or ill in State life? Is it not also the in telligence and culture of the men and women sent out from higher institutions and secondary schools that constitute the sure founda tions upon which the school-house in any community must rest? Do not all educational reforms came from the top? Is it not a matter of history that the college and university have come first in our civilization? Such is indeed the case. It must not be forgotten, how ever, that secondary education, the wealth of influences that have gone out from the high school and academy, has borne an honorable part in this struggle for a higher interpretation of life, for the emancipation and regen eration of man. We of the colleges and univer sities have failed ofttimes to place a proper estimate and dig nity upon the work which our high schools are accomplishing under great difficulties, and we have been inclined at times to feel that our work is apart from, and independent of, the methods, plans or purposes of the high schools. The high schools have in turn failed sometimes to real ize their indebtedness to the col leges, and have failed to appre ciate intelligently or fully how vital and organic the relation is that binds them to the culture above them —a culture which should be an unfailing and help ful source for strength, aspi ration and fresh ideals. The college-bred high school teacher is less likely to make such a mistake. The high schools have also made the mistake to feel that the work of the humble teacher in the elementary schools, unknown to fame, is of no consequence in its relation to secondary educa tion, while the colleges and uni versities have, it appears, utterly failed to realize that the humble teacher in the log hut, who lov ingly and prayerfully points the child upward, is actually and tru ly digging deep and making sure the foundations upon which the great superstructure of education must rest. Out of our misinter pretation, our ignorance, our 'prejudices perhaps, have grown a diversity of school interests, loosely thrown together without system or correlation, and yet we sometimes wonder why ii is that the educational machinery moves so sluggishly. We have failed lo le.ilize that we muse in a serious sense stand or fall together. If we should take from the locomotive its fuel and water, the steam chest and axles, would it be any wonder that the driving wheels would be inert and power- less. The difference in our work is not a difference in honor, but a' difference in degree merely. We need an educational sys tem. A system, however, cannot exist without well-defined limita tions between elementary, sec ondary and higher education. In this system the high school would hold an important place. In fact one of the greatest needs to-day in the State is well equipped, strong and progressive high schools for education, schools that ip*elfcb»L|v recog nize theii lligently interpret their bearings up as well as down, that know what a high school is, what a college is, and that are willing upon such an intelligent basis to organize, plan and develop their work in perfect harmony with well-defined forces above and below. But who shall say what the high school is, and what its limit ation, should be? The State says what the com mon school is, and what its lim itations are. This the State has a right to do, because the public money cannot be indiscriminately and indefinitely appropriated, but appropriated only to those teach ers and schools that conform to a definite standard of work laid down as the limit of educational training for which the State is willing to pay. We should say that the high school work, there fore, if no mistake has been made in defining the common school, should begin where the common school leaves off. It seems that there should be no difficulty up to this point, but there is a failure even here. The failure to inter pret their relation to grades be low is not the important consider ation, however, in this present discussion. It is not so much where they begin, as where they end, or try to end, that concerns us now. If the State supported the high schools, then it would doubtless be the policy to fix standards of work, and define the scope of work If the higher institutions then adjusted to the high school standards, we would then have a system. But it is not the policy of tlie State to support public high schools, and it is not our purpose to discuss this principle here, but to inquire whether under the present educational conditions such a thing as system can be se cured. The high schools of the State may be divided into two general classes, public high schools — those supported by municipal taxation, and private high schools. The standards of work in the public high schools are not at all uniform, neither is there anything like uniformity in the limitations or scope of what con stitutes a high school course. The high schools in the cities are, as a rule, clearly marked from the elementary schools, often in a separate building, and under a separate corps of teachers; where as the larger per cent, of private schools in the State must deal with the problem of elementary education, under the same roof, and generally with teachers teaching both high school and elementary grades. In the last report of the Com missioner of Education of the United States, Georgia is credited with 88 public high schools and 89 private high schools. About 23 per cent, of those pupils who complete the high school course enter college. The 23 per cent, includes male and female. The public high school and the private high school have there fore one problem in common, that is, to adjust their course of study not to suit the 23 per cent, only who go to college, but to suit the 77 per cent, who never go to col lege. We find, for example, such studies as physics and chemistry in the high school course, which properly belong to the junior class in our colleges, but an ele mentary knowledge of which has generally been deemed necessary for those pupils who do not ex pect to take a college course. For students in the high school who expect to enter college, such study would be worse than a waste of time. The high schools in their rela tion to ihe public, must thwefe”e meet certain requirements, and in their relation to the colleges, or to students who are preparing for college, must meet certain other requirements. This is one serious difficulty. If the high school happens to be under the control of a principal who does not properly interpret the rela tions of secondary and higher ed ucation, he may endeavor to com pete with the colleges, or per suade his students and the com munity that he can do college work, or persuade them at least that there is really no well de fined difference between college work and the work he can do. Such high schools are a detri ment to higher education, as well as a positive injury to the educa tional hopes and prospects of in dividual students who are beguil ed unto believing that their edu cation is indeed complete when they have taken the course in such schools. This would be a case where the teacher, on account of ignorance and lack of training, deceives himself and the public. Do such high schools exist? It is a case of free lance in the realm of private high schools, as to whether the schools shall be call ed high or higher. Many com munities and teachers are exceed ingly reckless in the matter of names. The diversity of work in its character and plan is there fore in the realm of the private high schools much less uniform than in the public high schools. Suppose, however, that the principal of the high school is college bred, that he does not yield too much to public clamor, that he knows the limitations of secondary education, that he is familiar with the college curri cula, and that he really wishes to put his school in line with the colleges and point his pupils higher, has he any standard from above to guide him? He has boys and girls in his finishing class. Can he find any uniformity of re quirements for admission to the college classes in the female col leges? No. Can he find uniform ity of requirements for admission to the freshman classes of the three leading male institutions in the State? No. The standard in the latter case, however, is much more definite than in the former. What is he to do therefore? There can be no such thing as system in our educational work until the higher institutions can agree and offer a standard fixed and definite to guide the high schools. If the school is a Baptist school, under Baptist control and influence, it can ally itself in curriculum, plan, spirit and purpose with Mercer’s curriculum. The chain of in fluence is then complete. We can intelligently help them, and they can intelligently help us. The general influence of Mercer University can be thrown to de veloping and strengthening them and they in turn can develop and strengthen Mercer University. Several most excellent secondary schools have already done this, and it is exceedingly desirable to have others do the same thing. We know these schools are co educational, hence the problem is not entirely solved with them. They send girls to colleges as well as boys; and they may now and then prepare boys for college in their community who prefer to go to Emory and the State Universi ty. If the State University, Em ory and Mercer had a uniform standard of entrance require ments, it would materially aid in throwing our school work in Georgia into a system. Such a movement is on foot. The State University and Mercer have prac tically agreed on the same re quirements for entrance to our freshman classes. Emory will most probably,agree. In the meantime we are proud of our secondary schools that are already affiliated with Mercer, and others that express a desire to confer with us looking to such agreement. I give the names of some of them. They are excellent in many ways and it gives me pleas ure to put them here as our rep resentatives, as well as the rep resentatives of an excellent and progressive educational spirit, in their sections. If space permit ted they might be spoken of with pleasure in a special way, show ing in detail what work they are accomplishing under their ex cellent corps of teachers. John Gibson Institute, Bowman, Ga., Prof. A. E. Keese, principal; Per ry-Rainey College, Auburn, Ga., Prof. J. A. Bagwell, principal; Houston High School, Arabi, Ga., Prof. J. E. Powell, principal; Bethel College, Cuthbert, Ga., Prof. A. J. Clark, principal; High tower Institute, Cumming, Ga., Prof. A. E. Booth, principal; Lo cust Grove Institute, Locust Grove, Prof. Y. E. Bargerdn, prin cipal; Hearn Academy, Cave Springs, Ga., Prof. J. L. John ston, principal; New Ebenezer Co llege, Cochran, Ga., Prof. A. M. Duggan, principal; Union Insti tute, Glennville, Ga., Prof. W. N. Smith, principal;Hephzibah High School, Hephzibah, Ga., Prof. C. n. S. Jackson, principal; Ryals High School, Prof. D. E. Green, principal; Daniel High School, Vidalia, Ga., Prof. M. L. Lawson, principal ;HiawasseeHigh School, Hiawassee, Ga., Prof. A. B. Green, principal. For the Index. Mercer and Missions. BY J. D. CHAPMAN, D.D. Every pastor is supposed to keep before his people the com mission of our Lord for evangeliz ing the world and for this work they pray and make regular con tributions of their money. Men fully equipped for this work are perhaps more needed than mon ey. To neglect our means for the intellectual equipment of these men would be to defeat the very end of missionary labor; and yet has this not been the policy of our churches towards Mercer? I think it can be truly said that Mercer, by her superb intellectual equipment given to so many min isters and laymen, has done more for missions than any other agency in the State. Our churches, however, have never been made to feel the need of fostering the educational part VOL 77-NO 1. of missionary works and for this reason Mercer has not shared to any great degree in our regular contributions, nor fully in our sympathies and prayers. Nor can we give any good reason for this state of affairs? Mercer has an endowment; yes, tint not ade quate. If the Foreign Mission Board had a half million endow ment we could hardly think of limiting the scope of the board’s work by the income from this. Many years ago Mercer had much the same endowment that she has now; then we had a handful of Baptists, now we are a host. What was sufficient then is by no means adequate now. Other like institutions all around us have made giant strides, both as to en dowment and the character and extent of work done. We must endow, or as Baptist we will take a seat very far in the rear. Again, I think we often err in supposing that our people possess a knowledge of Mercer and the opportunities offered there for young men. In going over the State I have found the very oppo site to be true. In nearly every community there is perhaps one man, or more, who attends the associations and in this way keeps fairly well posted, but many have not so much as learn ed that there is such an institu tion. A fearful indictment! Well, we will never remedy the evil by hiding the facts. People know more of the boards than they do of Mercer. My contention is, that our peo ple should have a full knowledge of all alike, and to do this Mercer must have some place in our church gatherings for prayers and gifts. Why not let one or cer months, during which time the cer months during which time the gifts of the church in every de partment will go in this direc tion? It will be a time of prayers for the institution, and if the pas tor will let him preach one edu cational sermon during the time; if not, let him before some one of his sermons call special attention to Mercer and to the fact that all the benevolence of that month will go towards endowing this university. This in my own ex perience has been no loss to the boards but great gain in many ways. In this way Mercer be comes a recognized agency in our denomination, is entrenched in the affections of cur people, and the University day by dav strengthened for better work. But this is not all. 'any a young man with latent power becomes awakened as to his possibilities and is started in a career of use fulness. I know of one church where in this way five young men of bright promise were last fall caused to enter Mercer, most of whom had hitherto felt that they could not afford the time or the money. Now these young men are all standing either at the head, or near the head of their classes. Is not such a result as tliis worth many such efforts of a pastor? A pastor’s work is many-sided and he may elevate intellectually and physically as well as spiritually and morally. But who can estimate the influ ence of Mercer upon missions? It was the missionary spirit that caused it to be established. Our fathers felt that their young men were neither trained sufficiently for home work nor foreign work, and Mercer was established to meet this deficiency. So far as I know, we have had very few missionaries to go from Mercer to the foreign field, and this is to be deplored, but the indirect influence of Mercer’s training upon missionary work can never be estimated. The missionary spirit in this State, among Bap tists, began with the growth of this institution, and I make bold to say that wherever in the State Mercer’s influence is most felt there the boards receive their greatest support. In whole coun ties in the northern and southern portions of the State, where the woods are literally full of Bap tists, we receive nothing for mis sions simply because they have barricaded their doors against Mercer's influence. The spirit of missions has grown in the village churches along the recently built railroads in direct proportion as the spirit of Christian education has entered them. Mercer, then, must be endowed and enlarged till her influence shall reach every nook and corner of this Empire State. Savannah, Ga. Many conclusive considerations might be cited in favor of a custom of church attendance, but perhaps no prettier phrasing of the true spirit and motive of worship can be afford ed than was suggested by the late Oliver Wendell Holmes, who thus explained his own habit of regular church attendance: “ There is a lit tle plant called Reverence in the corner of my soul’s garden which I love to have watered about once a : week.”