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Thursday, December 14,1916.
Sort of food she ate, at that price, your mind
may recoil from the next questions, to-wit:
, How did she buy clothing, fuel, oil, medi
cine, etc., and how did she pay house rent?
If she had children, how did they keep soul
and body together?
Every one is entitled to his own opinion, of
course, but there are a few Christians, I’m
sure, who will not admire the type of preacher
■who lives luxuriously on a handsome salary,
supplied in part by a woman who toils for
fifty cents a day.
In Palestine, the widow who gave the mite
was in no danger of starvation, after she had
given her little all. Among the Jews, charit
able support of the poor was organized ; and,
whereas, the Gentile clergyman claimed a
tithe, and kept the whole tenth for his own.
use, the Jewish tithe was divided between the
priesthood andjhe poor.
Such a thing as dying for the lack of food,
raiment, and shelter was unknown to the
Hebrew economy: hence, when ' the widow
gave her mite, she had her tribe and its tithe
to fall back on, for malntenanee.
Can Ainsworth name some similar organi
zation which will feed and clothe his self
sacrificing mill-worker, if her balance of
$2.50 a week proves insufficient to support
life?
Let’s get down to brass tacks:
What is Ainsworth mad with me about?
(1) Perhaps lie doesn’t like my insistence,
that Coca-Cola— which has legislated beer out
of the State, and taken its place with a more
injurious drink— should be taxed, just as beer
was.
Here is room for difference of opinion, and
for legitimate debate in the proper forum,
but not for pulpit denunciation, where no
reply can be made.
(2) Perhaps he doesn’t like my opposition
to Bishop Candler, in the matter of exempt
ing from taxes the million dollar Coca-Cola
iidowment of a sectarian school.•
Here, again, honest citizens may differ,
iihoi.it recourse to blows below the belt and
-nibs in the back.
(3) Perhaps he doesn’t like my attitude
r vard Board methods of doing the work of
I c reign Missions.
But here he should first make it clear that
j has understood me, before lie publicly
? its upon me the ban of his excommunica
t ion.
lie cannot show that I ever opposed the
\ew Testament methods, ever opposed’ the
methods < f The Fathers of the Church, or
.er opposed the methods which the evangeli
d churches employed for more than seven
u hundred years after Christ.
stand exactly where Adoniram Judson
•;og4; and Dr. Judson stood exactly where
■ ■■■ Apostle Paul stood. If Ainsworth knows
• better way than that of Judson and Paul, it
- i is privilege to pursue it; but he should lie
...i n> charitable to those who rank Judson and
Paul higher than they rank Ainsworth.
’ he gist of my contention has been that our
( i y is done when we carry the Gospel to the
'then, and teach him that which Christ
' . ; ght us.
We do not owe China and Japan, India and
> ica twenty-three million dollars a yehr,
, ..aide in school-houses, colleges, hospitals,
> . nasiums, technological institutes, experi
: •• ntal' farms, surgeons, doctors, trained
nurses, and physical -trainers.
Aken Ainsworth gets ready to debate this
’ect with me, in The Jeffersonian or in
t Advocate, he will find me open to reason
an : >ervidus to facts.
I '■ bp can demonstrate to me the affinity be
t eon religion and a gymnastic pole, let hiiA
hasten and do it. • r
if it is my duty to preach to John Jones
THE JEFFERSONIAN
and Tom Brown, here in Georgia, until I
coerce them into paying for a collegiate course
for the boys of Ching-Ling and Hung-Chang,
in China, hurry up and convince me, so that
I may get to work right away on the pocket
nerves of John Jones and Tom Brown.
If it is the duty of the American Joneses
and Browns and Smiths to neglect their own
sick and suffering, and to furnish the coin
for the building and maintenance of hos
pitals all over the balance of the world, for
tire sick and the suffering of foreign countries,
show it to me, right away, and let me begin
to howl at Jones and Brown and Smith.
The Reverend Ainsworth cannot say that I
ever did him harm. So far as recollection
serves, I have never seen this Apostle of
Sweetness and Light.
So far as I know, it has never been my mis
fortune to personally provoke this humble
Evangel of Compassion and Brotherly Love.
Why, then, did he burst forth, against me,
at a Y. M. C. A. meeting, on the Sabbath
preceding the day my trial was to take place
in the Federal Court?
Usually, it is presumed that even the poor
est negro is innocent, until his guilt has been
established by legal proofs.
Usually, the men who consider themselves
respectable, refrain from publishing tirades
against a fellow citizen who is on the eve of
his trial.
Usually, a person who would do a thing
like that would be universally censured, were
the case merely an ordinary one, involving
homicide, bank-wrecking, seduction, or rob
bery.
But where Rome seeks to destroy a
Protestant, because he made a sustained at
tack upon the system whose horrible
crimes against God and man gave birth to
Protestant churches, could you conceive of
anything more unnatural than the action of
a Protestant clergyman taking sides with
Rome ?
But for the pioneers who did, in the 16th
Century, just such work as I have been doing
for many years—work made absolutely neces
sary by the resurrection of medieval popery —
there would not now be in existence any such
church as tliat which Ainsworth belongs to,
and preaches in; nor would there be a freedom
of the press which enables a Canadian rene
gade to flee his own country to escape mili
tary service, and occupy his time in Georgia
vilifying Georgians who woqld be ashamed
to be caught in his company.
For what purpose did Ainsworth select the
day before my trial, to preach against me?
From what source is lie looking for a re
ward ?
If to the Roman Catholics, his conduct can
be understood. Their papers are already full
of his name and his praise. At one bound he
has gained a place on their roost, side by side
with Ashby Jones, another Leo Frank cham
pion.
Give the Italian pope many more recruits
like Ainsworth and Jones, and the work of
Luther and Calvin and Knox and Latimer
will come to nought.
Since the days of the Reformation, there
has been no change for the better in the Ro
man Catholic system.
If Luther had no cause to combat it, we
have none. If we are-wrong to combat it,
Luther was.
If the Huguenots had no cause to run away
from popery in France, we have none.
If we are wrong in crying aloud against the
danger, the Huguenots were wrong in fleeing
from France.
Did the Saltzburgers have cause to run
away from the Catholics of Austria ?
If they did, we have the same reason to
guard against a renewal of the danger.
Against the Protestant, the law of Rome
still threatens death!
Against our form of democratic govern
ment, the priests of Rome still swear EX TUI
PAT I ON.
Against civil and religious freedom: the
Italian church still thunders her irrevocable
anathema.
Is there any danger? Look around over
the Union. Count the 16.000.000 Catholics,
see their power in wealth, in offices, in the
Army, in the Navy, at the White House, and
m Congress—then judge between me and my
Ainsworths.
A Few Words for Dr. Ainsworth.
To the Editor of The Telegraph: A telegram
from Augusta, received at 10:31 a. m. at my
home in Cartersville this morning, tells me that
the Federal jury has returned a verdict of “Not
guilty," at 10 a. m., in the celebrated case of the
Federal Government against Hon. Thos. E. Wat
son. In my mail, I also received today the es
teemed Macon Telegraph of last Monday, in which
appears Dr. W. N. Ainsworth’s article —or sermon
—directed against Mr. Watson, whom he calls
“Georgia’s most dangerous man."
My absence in Augusta and Atlanta will ac
count for the delay of my mail, but the arrival;
of these two communications —one from Augusta
and the other from Macon —impressed my mind
as a peculiar experience and a notable coinci
dence.
Your Monday article was an elaboration of Dr.
Ainsworth’s sermon, addressed, as you say, to
“800 men." Its delivery was made to do violent
hurt.
Mr. Watson’s trial was set for Monday at 10
a. m.» and we find a minister in the city of
Macon firing the minds of nearly a thousand men
against the defendant; doing his utmost to
blacken the reputation of a native Georgian, and,
in so far as Dr. Ainsworth’s influence extends, in
citing these men to get rid of Hon. Thos. E. Wat
son and to place a ban upon him, that would af
flict his devoted wife and lovely daughter to the
end of their lives.
I am holding in my hands this Monday's edi
tion of The Telegraph, containing this denuncia
tion, as 1 write these lines, and I feel as if I was
never more ashamed of being a member and com
municant of the Methodist Church, South, than
at this moment.
There may be some personal antagonism be
tween the Macon minister and Mr. Watson, but
I cannot conceive of a ministerial mind which
could thus betray the virulence of such hatred
in a public place, and which could thus venomize
his own public discourse, without any thought of
the discredit which he has thus inflicted upon the
Methodist Church.
Since the year 1851 my name has been enrolled
as a member of this religious organization. With
ah experience of more than sixty-five years, I
feel sure I have never before come in contact with
a Methodist preacher who would venture to thus
betray his personal animosity against a person
whose private character was so fully vouched for
(as was Mr. Watson’s character at the Augusta
trial) —to use the sacred pulpit to such unhappy
effect, beggars my surprise and astonishment and
fatigues my patience.
Dr. Ainsworth has filled many positions of
prominence in the Methodist conference. This
lapse of tongue may be condoned by other con
gregations, and he may fill many other pulpits in
course of time; nevertheless this incident will
ever be remembered by thousands of Methodist
people in Georgia as something unworthy and dif
ficult to adjust, in the coming years, as relating!
to pastor and membership, in their intercourse.
1 sat in the Augusta court room for nearly
an hour last Wednesday. I saw numbers of Geor
gia’s most notable and honored men testify in Mr.
Watson’s behalf, and what I heard almost satis
fied my mind that Georgia politicians would not
attempt very soon another political persecution
in the courts, but my disappointment is great
to find that a Methodist minister who draws a
large salary and has been a teacher of young
women in an honored religious institution for
years, should not only prefer Barabbas in a
secular trial, but should do his utmost to awaken
a Ku Klux propagation from the pulpit of Mul->
berry Street church in his insensate diatribe
against a Georgian who has been so thoroughly
vindicated by the Federal jury in Augusta.
If Mr. Watson’s “soul juices have been turned
to vinegar,’’ have the lips of the preacher been
scorched by burning coals from the altar of his
hatred?
Respectfully,
MRS. W. H. FELTON.
Cartersville, Dec. 1. •
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