Newspaper Page Text
The Henry County Weekly
VOL. XLIV.
'.jt The Hidden Life <£
•
By REV. H. S. SMITH
Text:---“For ye are dead, and your life is
hid with Christ in God. Col. 3. 3.
Christ is gone, but He is not dead
like other men who are severed
from the living except for memory
and influence. There is an indis
soluble union between Christ and
His di§ciples. What a wonderful
message for the hitherto superfi
cial and worldly Collosal. It is a
great message for all time. It
brings the divine life here with its
eternal resources and projects this
life into the infinite.
A new life is spoken of. The old
life is dead. Once we were alive
to the attractions of the world.
Our aims and ends were earthly.
We do not leave it behind as the
stalk of wheat leaves the husk and
the butterfly the crysalis and the
child its jacket and books. It is no
outgrown good. It was inimical to
our true life. You left it behnid
not by resolving to quit your
meanness or by reform or by join
ing the church, but by crucifixion.
. The new life is hidden. That is
an aspect of all life. Man has an
outward and inward life. Perhaps
he hides his inner life purposely.
A man hides a kind heart behind
a rough exterior. He’s a better
man than he appears to be. There
are men who hide an evil life be
hind a fair exterior. They seem
to be better than they are.
It is of the essence of life that it
have unseen depths tnat cannot
be revealed. The hidden riches
of personality cannot be revealed
by speech or conduct. You can
not express your thoughts, feel
ings or sentiments. No man can
paint alt the beauty he sees, or
write all the truth he knows.
But vve have a richer truth.
Tne new lrfe is hid with Christ in
God. Then it is a life of unseen
and boundless resources. The
oak spreads out its rootlets under
many a square yard of ground and
lays hold ot needed resources.
Why doesn’t that youth give way
under the tire of temptation? His
companions are failing right and
left. Back yonder is home and
mother and mother’s teachings
and mother’s prayers. The roots
of his life reach back into such a
home and drink in strength. The
life that reaches dow a into the life
of God touches exhaustless re
sources.
Here seems to be a paradox.
Aren’t w’e told not to hide our light
under a bushel, but to lei it shine
before men? You can’t hide a city
that is set on a hill. Yes, but out
conduct and speech cannot reveal
our thoughts and faith and love.
It is said that electricity losess
two-thirds of its power in going
over the wires. The life of the
Christian is more mysterious than
the life of another man. It is be
cause he has the hidden manna to
eat. He has other aims and mo
tives and so the world knows him
not. Abraham’s neighbors in Ur
must have thought him a very
peculiar man to break away and
go out to a strange country that
promised little. He made Lot
what he was and it must have
been puzzling to understand why
he allowed Lot to take the grassy
A Weekly Newspaper Devoted to the In* rests of McDonough and Henry County.
and well watered plains while he
went to the hills.
There are limitless resources for
test and crisis. What does it take
to make you lose your temper? to
cause you to doubt God’s good
ness ? to drain off'your patience?
Jesus on Calvary said “Father, for
give them,” and Job under terrible
trial said, “Though He slay me,
yet will I trust Him.” So may we
stand.
It is a protected life. “As the
mountains are round about Jeru
salem, so the Lord is round about
them that fear him and delivereth
them.” The child with the parents
in the home has the protecting
bulwarks of the home about him.
So God protects his children. He
dosen’t protect them from temp
tation. We are not hothouse
plants. He doesn’t take us out of
the world. He promises that vve
shall not be tempted abave that
we are able to bear. He dosen’t
protect us from trials and dis
appointments. Yet no sorrow will
ever come when we will not find
his grace sufficient for- us. He
dosen’t protect us from death.
Men have died for his sake
i through all the centuries. “Fear
'not them who can kill the body,
but atter that there is no more
j that they can do. Of one thing
I we are sure, He will protect us
from the evil one. While we rest
in him by faith, no real harm can
come to us. “For lam persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor tilings present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate usT'rom
the love of Ged which is in Christ
Jesus bur Lord.”
He has gone within tiie veil, but
He has carried our life with him
into the secret place of the Most
High. Our life is beyond the
present order of things' “Our
citizenship is in heaven.” “We
have come to the fmavenly Jeru
salem?’ The telegraph wares may
be laden with ice or sigh in the
wintry blast, but who knows what
joyous messages are flashing over
them? The wintry winds of cir
cumstance may blow against the
lives of God’s children, but within
there is love and joy and peace.
“My Saviour comes and walks wilh me,
And sweet communion here have we,
He gently leads me by the hand
For this is heaven’s borderland.”
The statement is in connection
with the text “when Christ who is
our life, shall be manifested, then
shall we also be manifested with
Him in glory.” There is only a
partial manifestation here. Time
is short, opportunity is limited,
and the handicaps are great. But
the germ of all possible develop
ment is in this new life. “This is
eternal life, to know God and Je
sus Christ.” When Abraham was
young, there was a slender sapling
growing in California. There the
great Sepoia stands today, the
oldest living thing on the earth.
It’s life was involved in that sapling.
In Him is life for the present and
forever. “Touch God or perish,”
my friend. There is no alternative.
With His manifestation in glory
McDonough, Georgia, Friday. February i, 1918
t : OBSERVER : )
Have you read the article that
appeared in the last issue of The
Weekly entitled “Only Christian
Religion Can Save the World?”. If
you did not read it, hunt up ytmr
last week’s paper and read it.
Fix your garden.
Raise something to eat.
0, thou Allmighty Dollar.
Two Sundays a week in town.
And why not have a cigarette
less day.
Uncle Ike Whitaker is quite sick
with pneumonia.
High price cheap whiskey stems
to be getting plentiful.
Official weather forecaster
Cathy is back on <he job.
And why not have a coffeeless
and sugarless day also.
Woodmen of the World mem
bers must pay all dues on or be
fore the Ist of each month, or else
they will stand suspended.
And then if the religious world
would just have one dopeless and
pleasureless day once a week it
might help some.
It pays to advertise in The
Weekly, as a three line “ad”
brought in $133.50 worth of sub
scriptions to The' Atlanta Consti
tution recently.
It is a wotvdei that amid all
these wireless,- meatless, wheat
less, beefless", fuelless, cheapless,
warmless and days that
some fellow does not rise up
and suggest that the women have
a Talk less day.
The post office department has
put on some R F. D. routes out
from McDonough that are of such
length that il’s almost impossible
for the carriers to give good,
prompt service, and there is a
general complaint against it along
all the routes.
Mr. Edd Coker, who was re
cently elected as one of the city
Marshalls of McDonough, made a
successful hail last Sunday night,
capturing two blind tigers and a
quantity of blind tiger whiskey.
He called in in the assistance ot
Sherit't Ward, and while they were
in pursuit of the blind tigers, they
also flushed a crap game, and
when they finally concluded the
raid thev had jailed nine prisoners
as a reward for their trouble.
we shall be seen-for what we are.
What tried to express will be re
vealed.
There is a duty for the present
moment. “Set your mind on
tilings above and not on things on
the earth.” The things are aboye
our natural sentiments and the
sphere of our thoughts. We want
to meditate and reflect on these
thiiigs revealed like the lights in
the sky. We are to cultivate a
taste for them as one would for
music, literature or art This life
of vision and detachment is one of
tremendous power and influence
in the home, in business, and in
society.
A sure evidence of being in a
state of grace is this attitude to
ward SDiritual things. Here is the
method of the centuries for the
cultivation of the hidden life.
Study the Bible to find out its
teachings, lift your heart in pray
er to God, and read books of a
spiritual character. When my
mind turns away from these things,
I know that my spiritual life is
being depleted; but when I bring
myself back to a vital interest in
the things that are above, the days
are filled with peace and joy.
How Women Can Win the War
And How They Can Lose It.
President Wilson’s appeal for
greater efforts in food saving
strikes home with especial force
to the nation’s housewives, for it
is upon their loyalty in the observ
ance of wheatless and meatless
days and in other measures patri
otic economy that the solution of
the food problem, with its vital
relation to the winning of the war,
chiefly depends. All that the hotels
and restaurants and other public
institutions can do to conserve the
food supply amounts to merely a
few crumbs compared with what
the country’s millions of housholds
can do if they will enter whole
heartedly upon this impiratiVe ser
vice. Nor will all the heroism
and sacrifice of our soldiers, nor
all the valor and fortitude of our
Allies suffice for victory, unless
the women of America do their
utmost in saving food.
The housewife who lets any
thing stand in the way of her do
ing her full duty in this respect
is helping the Huns. It may re
quire forethought and may entail
some inconvenience to stick faith
fully to the plan of wheatless and
meatless days. It may take a deal
of diplomacy if not outright cour
age to enforce this rule in homes
where pampered meat eating male
snarls and snaps if denied his ac
customed chop or steak. But the
man who isn’t willing to do his
bit in this way to help win the
war doesn’t deserve even a cold
bone or a dog biscuit for Sunday
dinner. And the wife who can
not manage her men-kind in such
matters must surely have forgot
ten her wit of charm. Let the
trousered slackers gnash their
teeth it they will, but don’t give
them meat on meatless days or
wheat on wheatless days; and
don’t sugar their coffee with too
free a hand. Let them eat as
patriots or starve as shi? kers.
To say that remissness in this
duty amounts to helping the Huns
is by no means an overstatement.
Our soldiers must be fed if they
are to fight, and our Allies must
be kept from famine if they are to
stand with us to the end. For
three and half years, concentrat
ing all their energies upon the
battle front, they have borne'the
fiery onslaught of German barba
rity. The men by the millions
have been called from the furrows
to the trenches, and on the Con
tinent much of their most produc
tive soil has fallen into the invad
er’s hands. Never self-sustaining
in food supplies, these countries
find themselves in the war’s fourth
white? reduced to the leanest
rations and trembling at the pros
pect of what would come if Amer
ica should fail in timely aid. The
British Food Controller officially
advises our government that:
“Unless you are able to send
the Allies at least seventy-live
million bushels of wheat over
and above what you have ex
ported up to January 1, and
in addition to the exportable
surplus from Canada, I cannot
take the responsibility of as
suring our people that there
will be enough food to win
the war.”
It is only by earnest food econ
omy in every household of this
land that we can prqvide the ex
port surplus of wiieat and other
staples necessary to enable our
Allies to hold out until the military
strength of the United States can
be thrown decisively into the field
Anyone, therefore, who fails to do
a loyal part in this imperative
work is helping the Huns; is tak
ing food from men who are fight
ing our battlas, and from half-fam
ished women and children ; is ad
ding to the war’s grim cost and
prolonging its agony; is piling
higher the red sacrifice of our
own soldier boys and deepening
the shadows that will enwrap?
American homes.
Surelv, the women of Georgia
and of the South, with the exam
ple of their noble mothers in the
iron days of the ’Sixties shining
upon them, will not fail their
country in this critical hour. Bui
there must be a wider and more
constant response to the govern
ment’s appeal for food saying, if
urgent war needs are to be met,.
There must be general and stead
j fast adherents to the program of
I wheatless and meatless days..
I There must be definite and actual
recognition of the fact that these
measures are essential to the win
ning of the war and that the home
in which they are not faithfully'
observed is false to the flag. Les
every home-keeper who has ever
thought upon the anguish of Bel
gium’s women and children, who
has ever thought would befall her
own fireside at the hands of Prus
sian soldiery, who has • ever
thought of the American boys,
(her own perhaps amongst them
who are ip the trenches or are
training to go—let every woman
of this mind and heart resolve
anew to do her utmost in saving
food to win and shot ten the war.
and influence others to follow her
patriotic example. —Atlanta Jour
nal.
Thanks Returned to
Henry Co. Red Cros*
Camp Hancock, Augusta, Ga., Jan
10, 1918. The American Red
Cross, McDouough, Ga.
To the members of the Henry
County Chapter:
Please accept my th inks in be
half of the men who s 6 greativ
benefited by your generosity of
Christmas time. lam sure if yon
could have been here and see.:
the delight with which they re
ceived the packages, which to-.
many of the men were the only
expression of Christmas greeting
which they received, you would'
feel more than repaid for your
efforts.
We had near our regimen?
3,500 men who had been as
sembled only that week. The
leaving of their home stations was
so sudden that they were unable
to notify their families of their
whereabouts, and you can
ine their joy in receiving the Red
Cross packages. Please urge up
on all the members of your Chap
ter the great value .these gifts
will have next Christmas when
many <sf our men, as it now ap
pears, will be in France.
With best wishes to all of you
I am Yours sincerely,
Frederick P. Houghton.
Chaplain 103 d Regt. Engineers.
$1.50 A YEAR
