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About Southern Christian advocate. (Macon, Ga.) 18??-18?? | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1878)
lIVO DOLLABS AND FIFTY CENTS PER VOL. XLI., NO. 35. [For the Southern Christian Advocate.] In Memoriam. Again an awful shadow rests on happy homes and hearts ; Again from eyes once lit with love the tear of anguish starts ; And o'er a violet-vested mound, pale melan choly keeps Her silent vigils for the dead, while pensive sorrow weeps. 0, hide from me this daisied dust—these flow ers that blossom so ! They only mock the beautiful, laid in the earth below 1 Hushed be your songs, O singing birds ! ye do but mock that voice, Whoso tender tones can nevermore make mottal hearts rejoice! Ah, no ! your many melodies are only breath ed in vain ; She cannot listen to them now —she never will again! And birds may carol sweetly still, aud roses brightly bloom, But they—alas!—can never wake an echo from the tomb. They cannot ease the agony that kindred hearts must feel, For her whose death has left a wound which time can never heal; Earth has no solace for their grief, nor can it soothe their loss, They can but seek in their despair the shad ow of the Cross ! Dear Lord ! if that these stricken ones should murmur as they bow Beneath that “ chastening rod,” which seems to fall so heavy now, Forgive them, in that they have lost all that made life so sweet, Their earthly idol, like a flower, lies broken at their feet 1 Even on the verge of womanhood, her peace ful spirit fled, And while she winged her flight to Heaven they mourned her here as dead ; While on her Saviour’s bosom lay the soul he died to save. Earth’s children wept above the dust that mantled o’er her grave ! Is it not better as it is —that she should bo above, In that bright world where all is peace, hap piness and love t is .... H scr Seating days and years, FI or weeping, for the Lord himself shall wipe away her tears 1 She is not lost —she waits for you upon the other side, And if a river flows between, its waters are not tvide ! In that blest world, whose golden streets her angel-feet have trod, Heart beats to heart, and hand clasps hand eternally , thank God! F. L. S. A Letter from Dr. L. Pierce. Brother Weber: A little about the introduction of Methodism into that part of South Carolina west of Barn well Courthouse, and on what was called the Three Buns of Savannah Eiver in the days of' my boyhood, may be interesting to some of your readers. It will take me a little fur ther back. My father, Captain Lovick Pierce, came from .North Carolina, Halifax County, near Boanoke River, in 1788, and settled on Tinker Creek, it being then in Orangeburg District. I can remember well his having to go to Orangeburg to court, as a juror. Barnwell District was afterwards made, and our dwelling place was only twelve miles from Barnwell, which gave us of Tinker Creek homes great relief, as to court duties and interests. It was all Districts then. It will sound strange to you of to day for me to tell you that region was all wild, vacant lands, belonging to the State at that time. So my father obtained what they called a land war rant, for six hundred and forty acres, and located it to suit himself—the State guaranteeing it afterwards. On this section of land we lived until February, 1804, when he sold out and settled in Georgia. We lived there to be twelve in family, and never had a case of sickness, save only three little eases of chill and fever that I had when about twelve years old. Of course we had no death in our family, nor was there ever a dose of medicine taken in our family. As it will now fall in with the won derful issues of time, I will state that although this creek was now pretty thickly settled, and up where we lived had on its west side a marsh, in some places very wet and boggy, more than a quarter of a mile in width, there never was but one adult died on the creek during my sojourn on it; he died of a billious inflammatory fever; and two little cousins of mine, with bloody flux, three deaths in all. This is good Tinker Creek history. I have often said that portion of Barnwell PUBLISHED BY WALKER, EVANS & COGSWELL FOR THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. CHARLESTON, S. C., SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1878. will remain unrivaled for healthful ness with mo, as long as I live. My brother Reddick, of wholesome memory in South Carolina, and my self, were born in North Carolina, but were raised up in South Carolina, on this Tinker Creek homestead, from which we both entered the itinerant ministry in Charleston, Christmas week, in 1804. This region of country, under re port now, in my boyhood days was entirely destitute of houses of wor ship and ministers of grace. Only one preaching place, in a private house, by a Baptist preacher named Delaughter, within our roach, until 1801, when Old Edisto Circuit was enlarged from a four into a six weeks Circuit, and my uncle Lewis Weath ersby let them preach in his dwelling house. Here our family, all that were old enough, joined the church as pro bationers, my father and mother, and brother and oldest sister, and myself three weeks after. It being a six weeks Circuit, and only two preach ers, we had preaching once in three weeks. These two years —1802-3— we had a preacher in charge, Thomas Darley. In 1803 we built a neat little log meeting-house, on my father’s land, the first house of worship ever built in that section of country. In August of that year, on one of Dar ley’s days, was seen the first instance of that marvelous power in which the worst sinners were struck dumb, as if in death, as the first sign of convic tion. And what made it the occasion of wonder and suspicion was, that Darley told them when he got up, if his feelings did not deceive him they would see strange things there that day. Aud of course all enemies of the Methodists charged bis anticipa tion of it to some fraudulent enchant ment. To us it was the more aston ing, because my father-having nearcl Of these fallings down, an 3 get tings up, and professing conversion— had often said if any one was to fall down in that way where he was, he would stamp his hypocrisy out of him. He was a large, athletic man, well kuown; but he was the first man ever struck down by the Holy Ghost in that region. I looked on it as sud den death—was in awful trouble. But he joyfully revived ; and I was soon converted, and commenced shouting. A little on the civil side. My ob servation on this side of society, dur ing seventy-five years, and all the time on the moral watch tower, may be utilized. Civilization, misused, feeds depravity. And by depravity I mean, rather an underlying stratum of sin, than its overt acts. These, as far as common indulgences may go, are always found rampant in that grade of civilization first after modi fied barbarian life. So in my boy hood days when men fell out and must be revenged if they could, they fought, using their fists, but never using stick, knife or pistol. No dead ly weapon Avas ever used in a personal rencounter. Somo of the more fero cious sometimes bit a nose or ear, or finger—maiming one another, and were severely punished by courts. The self-created nobility, who felt this mode of seeking satisfaction to be too low for them, fought duels, or else let it go. While we have gained somewhat in the way of material wealth, we have fallen, in two respects, far below our moral plane seventy-five years ago. I mean in what I will call commer cial integrity. The moral obligation to fulfill business promises has dwin dled into vapor. And murder has risen into custom. I suppose there is not in the wide world another nation where civilization and Christianity dwell together, as blood-stained, by voluntary killing, as America. This blot upon what enthusiasts call a free government —which, by the by, is a misnomer—must be accounted for in some other way, or our republi can form of government is an awful failure. But it can be accounted for clearly, and may be easily remedied, in so far as this wanton killing is in the way. All we need is strong law, expressed so as to be unpervertible by employed counsel. In our present codes of law there are too many grades and shades in murder. It is all wrong. All vol untary killing is murder. It cannot be graded down to manslaughter and justifiable homicide, aud so on. Let our Legislatures simply declare that all voluntary killing shall be rated and treated as murder, and enforce it rigorously, and 1 will go security that this dog-killing fashion of killing men will cease. So at least as to put an end to all this system of public slaugh ter. My readers will excuse mo for these memories of the past, and for my advice offered as a voluntary. My second number will be of old camp-meetings in my day, in South Carolina, which will be now to this generation of Methodists. L. Pierce. Faith and Scepticism. BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. NUMBER ONE. The word “science” now-a-days is often so used that it might seem that there is no science in the world but the science which treats of material nature. Some persons, L say, aro so little acquainted with the great scope of scientific subjects, that they confine the name “ science ” to more material or physical science, and forget that there is a science of mind, both moral and intellectual, older and greater than any science which deals with matter; that tbero is a science of politics ; that history is capable of being treated scientifically. It was taught of old, in the great University to which I have the honor to belong, that there is a Mother and Queen of all scieneos, which treats of man, the highest ob ject in creation—of his life here, and his hopes hereafter—of'God who made him, and of his relation to his Maker ; and this greatest of all sciences is tho science of Theology. Now, I am here to maintain that, in tho truest sense of tho word, we may have scien tific proof of the truth of the Christian religion. lam here to maintain that science halotruly, if out more truly, to the subjects on which I now address you, as to those to which the word is now so commonly con fined. There is one branch of science, indeed, which rests always on demon stration, which has to do with self evident and immutable truth, —truths about which there cannot possibly bo doubt; but thut branch of science is entirely confined to pure mathematics. That two and two make four, and that tho two angles of a triangle are togeth er less than the third : these are of course propositions which no man out of alunatic asylum is allowed to doubt. Tho subjects of this sort of science aro very limited indeed ; they are confined, as as 1 have said, to pure mathematics : and tho whole of material or physical science rests not on reasoning of this kind. It has to do with the same sort of probable and experimental reason ing which we use in matters of com mon life, on which we believe the tes timony of history, and which we ap ply to all the ordinary subjects with which wo are concerned, either in our speculations apart from pure mathe matics, or in the regulation of our con duct. Those gentlemen who exclu sively claim to themselves—or at least to whom is given—tho name of “sci entific ” men, forget perhaps —or those who apply the name to them forget— that the very first principles on which they conduct their reasonings are not matters of mathematical certainty ; that they have to take for granted things incapable of proof to those who doubt them. A man who is going to speculate on the subject of the mate rial universe, must first of all take for granted the existence of something outside his own mind : and how is he to prove this, if either himself or any one else doubts it. The thing must be taken for granted, and the taking it for granted is a departure at once from the region of that demonstrative science which has to do oniy with im mutable, self-evident truth. Again, this man must take for granted that the experience of the past is a criteri on as to what is to come in the future. But there can be no experience of the future, and therefore the thing is mere ly taken forgranted. It is incapable of being proved ; and the man who speculates on outward matters, or something existing beyond his own mind, and lases his speculations on the process of experiment, at once de parts from the region of pure mathe matical science, and is in the same re gion of probible evidence as that in which our other speculations are con ducted. 1 grant that those who confine them selves to truths of phyiscal science, and say that wo ought to make these the basis of all our assertions of posi tive truth, have this advantage, that there is in their particular studies some thing stable, and upon the whole sat isfying ; that there is nothing in them beyond the reach of our easy compre hension when tho experiments aro once fully explained ; and therefore I quite understand the sort of language which at times they use, warning peo ple that they had better be contented with that of which they have distinct experimental evidence, and not lose themselves in the mazes of these spec ulations which have to do with the things unseen. I can quite understand the force of such language, and the attractiveness of such solid studies, but they will not suffice for beings con stituted as we are. It is all very well to have to do with tho things seen, and temporal, and capable of being touch ed aud handled, and tested by experi ment of the senses so long as we are confining ourselves to the very brief span of that short life which is passing so rapidly away with each of us. Of all tho facts which experience estab lishes, there is no fact so certain as that each of us hero shall die ; and it is the part of wisdom, or of true science, to say, “ I will take cognizance of those tilings alone of which I have on ly an experience which must termi nate at my death ? If death be a sol emn, as it is a certain, fact; if, for each of us here present, death he waiting, and all that is beyond it has to do with the unseen, and all that passes while wo enter on it must bo of the region of things which cannot bo test ed by our common experiences hero, it is the part of reasonable beings at once to settle that they have nothing to do with what lies beyond death ? They cannot, tell with any certainty that death is the end; and, if it bo not the end, what folly to have acted as if you were certain that it was the end? What man can be worthy of the name of philosopher who would tell us so to act ? Death is the cer tain fact; but what death is, we know not. Wo know that we have chang ed continually since we first entered on our being. We know® that the in fant is totally unlike tho man in his maturity ; and yet that ho is the same man. We know that tho pow ers of mind may continue, while the body is wasting away to tho very last verge of our earthly existence; and wo know nothing which can tell us, that when the verge is reached, those powers, which seem independ ent of tho body, are to end because the body dies. Nay, even on a mate rial hypothesis, suppose we grant for a moment that the soul resides in matter, aro we not told of solid inde structible particles of matter? Who shall tell us whether the soul, even according to a material hypothesis, does not reside in one of those parti cles which no known power in nature has ever been supposed to be capable of dissolving, according to materialis tic theories ? And, therefore, how can I know that the soul which has been in me ever since I was a baby, which has passed with me through all those changes of my changeful life, which seems altogether independent of tho outward organizations of my frame, is to go out, like the flame of a candle, when I have come to that pe riod of my existence which we call death? And, if it be that the soul aud mind aro thus to live, strengthened by the fact that the greatest intellects that have ever lived have recognized that the soul is immortal; that the poets, the philosophers, the theolo gians, all the men who have ever given themselves to tho study of these great subjects—those who have influenced the human race in the highest stages ofits civilization —have been convinced that there was that within them which death could not extinguish? My friends, he is no true philosopher who tells us that we need not trouble our selves as to what will happen when we come to that great event which we call death. There is every reason to believe—and the arguments, which it would bo vain of course to attempt to enter on here, are to be found in all the books that have treated on the subject—there is every reason to be lieve, as a matter of science, that death is not tho end ; and if death bo not the end, tho man is mad who does not THE FLOWERS COLLECTS F. M. KENNEDY, D. D Editor. Rev. S. A. WEBER.Associate Editor. WHOLE NO. 2115. make preparation for that which lies beyond death.— MacMillian’s Maga zine. Varieties. What an orator James A. Duncan was! How tho Virginians and Mary landers must miss him! In his speech on fraternity, in ’76, wo find this elo quentpassage ; “ From the Northern border of it (our country) where God’s perpetual how of peace glorifies Niag ara’s cliffs, to the sea-girt Southern line, where God’s gifts made earth almost an Edon of fragrance and beauty ; and from tho rock-bound At lantic, where the Eastern song of the sea begins its morning music, away to the far off Pacific, where the Western waters murmur their evening bene diction to our land as tho tide goes out beneath tho setting sun, everywhere we feel the inspirations of our coun try, and devoutly pray, “ God bless j our native land !” f I Wo may differ about the “ higher | life,” as some call that state of grace , we Methodists call Christian perfec j tion, but all true Christians agree in ! “ hungering and thirsting after right eousness.” This craving of the soul after God leads His people to tho fountain of supplies, where they find pardon, cleansing, lovo and joy. Thus they will “goon to perfection.” O how often our souls pant after Him, “ as the hart panteth after tho water brook 1” How does the converted heart cry, “ early will I seek thee; my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh long eth for thee in a dr}’ and thirsty land where no water is ; to see thy power and thy glory, so as 1 have seen thee in tho sanctuary!” And while we “thirst” wo are “filled.” Then His loving kindness is better than life.” We will then rejoice in our Master’s w; Ja, ” Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven, is perfect.” Let us not argue about tho name of the dish served up for God’s people, but see to it that wo are “filled.” G. H. W. But there is a way to he adding ever-increasing beauty and glory to the bouse of'God. Oh, that we may prize it more and more ! Go out into the lanes and highways ; find somo outcast wretch—some stray fragment of the universal wreck of man, some trampled stone in the miry clay; sound aloud the word of the Lord, that harp of blessed music by which the Spirit draws man-kind to Christ. By-and-by, under tho power of God blessing tho word, that soul is awa kened to a sense of ruin and want, and is led, in captivity of the truth, to Christ. No sooner does he touch a man, than tho virtue of a now life comes unto him, and ho lives. Tho love of God is shed abroad in his heart. The beautiful garniture j of inward graces, more precious than ! the most fine gold, adorns him. He | is united to Christ, and through him |to God. Hero is the honor of the Church, tho preciousness of the gospel, and the glory of the grace of God. How wonderful that communication j of life, that resurrection from tho dead, I that ascension of the regenerate soul | “ to sitin heavenly places with Christ!” ' Look unto the rock whence he was ; hewn, and tho hole of the pit whence Ihe was digged ! How is God glorified j in such an addition to his Church ? i What joy is it to the angels that do his will ? By such is the Church a building of God. Thus does it rise to ward heaven. They are thy jewels, daughter of Zion ; “ thy walls, salva tion ; thy gates, praise.”— Exchange. The way in which pastors are se cured for the Church of England va cancies is showD by the following ad vertisement which appeared lately in the London Times: “Next presenta tion to a living in a favorite part of Buckinghamshire, where the popula tion is small and the society good. Comfortable residence, grounds and outbuildings. The present incumbent is 75, in a very bad state of health. In come exceeds =£3oo (SI,500) a year. If sold at once , no reasonable offer re fused." There were seven deaths among the whites, and twenty-one among tho colored people, in Charleston during the week endng October 26,
