1900
A Storyette
Written for The Ram's Horn
By VINCENT Van MARTER BEEDE
Queer, isn't it, that the more hole you take away, the more hole there should be! Just as queer is the fact that the more of oneself he gives away, the more he has. It takes a long time to find this out. The general run of us seem to be born greedy. Nurse sets us down at the table, and what a gobbling takes place. With what jealous eyes do we watch Tommy for fear his slice of bread have more area, or greater thickness of jelly upon it, than ours.
Two little cousins met in the hallway. The laughing cousin saw in the hand of the petulant cousin a stick of candy — a gay, red-and-white stick. Big eyes of want glowed at the stick. Advances the laughing one; frowns and retreats the petulant one. Says one of the mothers, "Why, Winnie, aren't you going to give Ruddy a taste?" "No!" :— then, after a fierce inward battle — "He can have just one tuck." The laughing one was now open both as to eyes and mouth. Alas for that tuck! It was of such vast proportions as to comprise seven-eights of the stick. No wonder a tangled heap of kilts was the result.
"Disgusting little wretch, that Ruddy!" you say. Quite right. But in this world there are a number of Ruddys and Winnies, big and little, are there not?
Number 1! Dear, darling Number 1!
Supposing Congress were to declare a Day of Unselfishness. Weeks before its coming ministers would tell of it in their pulpits, teachers from their desks, fathers under the evening lamp. Newspapers would jest over or extol it; men would shake their heads in anticipation of it. The first holiday of the kind is clear as crystal — a real, warm-hearted, flower-steeped May day. The President in his Proclamation has implored the people prayerfully to endeavor, in every detail of the day's pursuits, to think first of the neighbor and secondly of self. Thousands, hundred-thousands, millions of folks sneer at the suggestion, daubing another coat of love-proof varnish on their withered hearts. Millions of people, on the other hand, can try very little harder to be more unselfish than usual on this day; they have been trying so hard these many days! There are still the millions who will try to look out for Number 2 on this day.
Egbert does lend Albert the new fishing-rod — and even the new reel. Jenny takes the Poore family out driving, queer old clothes and all, in preference to the Chummy Crones, her four-cornered club of very special friends. Mrs. Flitter actually decides to have her boy at home from boarding-school for the holidays, even though he is such a nuisance; and Marcus Magnate, the Coal King, omits to foreclose on the mortgage of the Widow Peters.
If there is any of the fabled music left in the spheres, it is sounding today. There is a swelling cry of hope, and love, and gladness, from Atlantic to Pacific, from Gulf to Border, and the sky is smiling — yes, laughing. Trade is good, very good; the children are very well today, thank you; and Grandmother's rheumatiz is much improved. Pessimists and croakers are crawling into their holes and pulling the holes in after them.
Glory of glories, the day after the Day of Unselfishness is another Day of Unselfishness! And the day after the day after that is a good deal like the legal one! And never again will this land be so selfish as it was before the dawning of that Day.
Only a dream. The bubble has burst. Never mind: cannot each one of us, in communion with that little Christ-child who showed us, and is now showing us, what love can do, what unselfishness can be — cannot each one of us quietly celebrate a Day of Unselfishness — and many another Day like it?
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 7.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Letter To Besieged Missionaries in China
1900
As an item of record and for the benefit of those clamorous bigots who a few months ago were holding the Christian missionary responsible for all the ruin wrought to "trade and human life" in China, we print herewith the text of a letter addressed to this noble band of Christians by Mr. Conger, minister plenipotentiary of the United States in China:
"Pekin, Aug. 18 — To the Besieged American Missionaries: To one and all of you so providentially saved from the threatened massacre, I beg in this hour of our deliverance to express what I know to be the universal sentiment of the diplomatic corps — a sincere appreciation of and profound gratitude for the inestimable help which you and the native Christians under your charge have rendered toward our preservation. But for your intelligent and successful planning and the uncomplaining assistance of the Chinese I believe our salvation would have been impossible. By your courteous consideration of me and your continued patience in most trying occasions I have been deeply touched, and for it I thank you most heartily. I hope and believe that somehow in God's unerring plan your sacrifices and dangers will bear rich fruit in the material and spiritual welfare of the people to whom you have so nobly devoted your lives and work. Assuring you of my personal respect and gratitude, believe me very sincerely yours, E. H. CONGER."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.
As an item of record and for the benefit of those clamorous bigots who a few months ago were holding the Christian missionary responsible for all the ruin wrought to "trade and human life" in China, we print herewith the text of a letter addressed to this noble band of Christians by Mr. Conger, minister plenipotentiary of the United States in China:
"Pekin, Aug. 18 — To the Besieged American Missionaries: To one and all of you so providentially saved from the threatened massacre, I beg in this hour of our deliverance to express what I know to be the universal sentiment of the diplomatic corps — a sincere appreciation of and profound gratitude for the inestimable help which you and the native Christians under your charge have rendered toward our preservation. But for your intelligent and successful planning and the uncomplaining assistance of the Chinese I believe our salvation would have been impossible. By your courteous consideration of me and your continued patience in most trying occasions I have been deeply touched, and for it I thank you most heartily. I hope and believe that somehow in God's unerring plan your sacrifices and dangers will bear rich fruit in the material and spiritual welfare of the people to whom you have so nobly devoted your lives and work. Assuring you of my personal respect and gratitude, believe me very sincerely yours, E. H. CONGER."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.
The Bible – The Best Selling Book
1900
In this year of census taking it is natural that statistics of all kinds should possess a peculiar interest. Among other things, people are always desirous of knowing what books are meeting with the greatest sales at any given time. There are always half a dozen, more or less, popular books which for the time being are most prominent in the public eye. It is not surprising to have one of these run into editions of hundreds of thousands.
Inquiry in the book department of one of the biggest retail stores, however, reveals a somewhat surprising condition, for while there have been 6,000 copies of a popular work of fiction sold within a given time there had been between 16,000 and 18,000 Bibles disposed of during the same period. According to the manager of this department the case is by no means exceptional. In fact if statistics were to be gathered later in the season a disparity in the favor of the Bible and religious books would be much larger.
There are other books which bear reprint year after year, notably those of Dickens, Scott, Shakespeare and other immortal authors, but no book has ever been written which bears constant reprinting in so many forms and during so many seasons as the Word of God, which today probably possesses a stronger hold upon the human race than it has ever had before.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.
In this year of census taking it is natural that statistics of all kinds should possess a peculiar interest. Among other things, people are always desirous of knowing what books are meeting with the greatest sales at any given time. There are always half a dozen, more or less, popular books which for the time being are most prominent in the public eye. It is not surprising to have one of these run into editions of hundreds of thousands.
Inquiry in the book department of one of the biggest retail stores, however, reveals a somewhat surprising condition, for while there have been 6,000 copies of a popular work of fiction sold within a given time there had been between 16,000 and 18,000 Bibles disposed of during the same period. According to the manager of this department the case is by no means exceptional. In fact if statistics were to be gathered later in the season a disparity in the favor of the Bible and religious books would be much larger.
There are other books which bear reprint year after year, notably those of Dickens, Scott, Shakespeare and other immortal authors, but no book has ever been written which bears constant reprinting in so many forms and during so many seasons as the Word of God, which today probably possesses a stronger hold upon the human race than it has ever had before.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.
Millionaire Working Construction on Railroad
1900
Some people were startled recently by the news that in the survey corps engaged in the construction work for the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Company, working for $1.50 per day, is a reputed millionaire, or perhaps a multimillionaire. He is Bertram Bell, the son of a wealthy capitalist of New York, who died recently, leaving a large fortune, variously reported from $1,000,000 to $3,000,000, to his son, who left the luxuries of his metropolitan home and came out West to enter the surveying corps just to learn the business.
It must be admitted that in these days when the sons of our multimillionaires are so partial to golf and polo as a means to develop a robust body, it is somewhat of a shock that one of them should be so unconventional as to choose a chain and transit instead of a curved stick or a champing steed. But such happenings as this are a good augury of a better future. It is good for Mr. Bell and the world in which he moves that he has the hardy manhood to break away from the enervating environment of wealth and pleasure. He has dignified his rank and station which are falling rapidly into disrepute because they have been made disreputable by the idle and predatory rich.
No sane human being envies a man of wealth. One should even admire him, if his wealth be honestly won, for genuine success of any kind is worthy of admiration. Bertram Bell proves to be an exception, but as yet the exception is by no means rare. Every large city and some smaller ones present instances wherein young men have taken their father's name and undertaken their father's business burdens, and by so doing have inherited a richer possession than their father's wealth. They have succeeded to the honor and esteem in which their sires were held among men.
It is true there are many contrasts to these careers, and the contrasts are perhaps the more numerous. But when the young and idle men of wealth know and experience the contempt in which the world holds them they may not be quite insensitive to the world's bad opinion. It is our duty not to keep them in ignorance.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.
Some people were startled recently by the news that in the survey corps engaged in the construction work for the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Company, working for $1.50 per day, is a reputed millionaire, or perhaps a multimillionaire. He is Bertram Bell, the son of a wealthy capitalist of New York, who died recently, leaving a large fortune, variously reported from $1,000,000 to $3,000,000, to his son, who left the luxuries of his metropolitan home and came out West to enter the surveying corps just to learn the business.
It must be admitted that in these days when the sons of our multimillionaires are so partial to golf and polo as a means to develop a robust body, it is somewhat of a shock that one of them should be so unconventional as to choose a chain and transit instead of a curved stick or a champing steed. But such happenings as this are a good augury of a better future. It is good for Mr. Bell and the world in which he moves that he has the hardy manhood to break away from the enervating environment of wealth and pleasure. He has dignified his rank and station which are falling rapidly into disrepute because they have been made disreputable by the idle and predatory rich.
No sane human being envies a man of wealth. One should even admire him, if his wealth be honestly won, for genuine success of any kind is worthy of admiration. Bertram Bell proves to be an exception, but as yet the exception is by no means rare. Every large city and some smaller ones present instances wherein young men have taken their father's name and undertaken their father's business burdens, and by so doing have inherited a richer possession than their father's wealth. They have succeeded to the honor and esteem in which their sires were held among men.
It is true there are many contrasts to these careers, and the contrasts are perhaps the more numerous. But when the young and idle men of wealth know and experience the contempt in which the world holds them they may not be quite insensitive to the world's bad opinion. It is our duty not to keep them in ignorance.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.
Thanksgiving Day – The Religious National Holiday
1900
Thanksgiving day is unique in one respect at least in that it is our only National holiday to which a distinctly religious character is given by official utterance. Christmas day, because it recalls the birth of Christ might be supposed to be the more religious occasion of the two, but Christmas long since has lost much of its religious significance as also indeed has Thanksgiving, but it is still true of the later that its celebration is ordered by official proclamation.
This at first thought may not mean a great deal, for we know in what terms of stale conventionality these annual proclamations are issued and that they come sometimes from executives to whom the name of God has no sacred import. But it is very significant that there has never yet been a Governor or President, however much of an unbeliever he might be, who was willing to offend the religious sense of the nation by failing to appoint a day of prayer and Thanksgiving.
It has often been observed that the name of God does not appear in our federal Constitution, but what matters it so long as year by year our chief magistrate and the magistrates of our nearly half a hundred mighty commonwealths call upon the people to remember God on this day of prayer. It matters little and especially so if the people themselves will but preserve this day and observe it in a manner consistent with its traditions. It need not be altogether spent in prayer and fasting; praise and feasting are quite as much in place.
Above all it should be a day when family ties are strengthened, when family hearths are ablaze and when father and mother, son and daughter should bow together before our Father's God, acknowledging all his blessings, and seeking his forgiveness for our sins. They who dedicate Thanksgiving day to mere sport and dining betray a sacred institution, and dishonor a noble ancestry who held God in faithful remembrance.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.
Thanksgiving day is unique in one respect at least in that it is our only National holiday to which a distinctly religious character is given by official utterance. Christmas day, because it recalls the birth of Christ might be supposed to be the more religious occasion of the two, but Christmas long since has lost much of its religious significance as also indeed has Thanksgiving, but it is still true of the later that its celebration is ordered by official proclamation.
This at first thought may not mean a great deal, for we know in what terms of stale conventionality these annual proclamations are issued and that they come sometimes from executives to whom the name of God has no sacred import. But it is very significant that there has never yet been a Governor or President, however much of an unbeliever he might be, who was willing to offend the religious sense of the nation by failing to appoint a day of prayer and Thanksgiving.
It has often been observed that the name of God does not appear in our federal Constitution, but what matters it so long as year by year our chief magistrate and the magistrates of our nearly half a hundred mighty commonwealths call upon the people to remember God on this day of prayer. It matters little and especially so if the people themselves will but preserve this day and observe it in a manner consistent with its traditions. It need not be altogether spent in prayer and fasting; praise and feasting are quite as much in place.
Above all it should be a day when family ties are strengthened, when family hearths are ablaze and when father and mother, son and daughter should bow together before our Father's God, acknowledging all his blessings, and seeking his forgiveness for our sins. They who dedicate Thanksgiving day to mere sport and dining betray a sacred institution, and dishonor a noble ancestry who held God in faithful remembrance.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.
How She Got Rid of Them
1910
Discouraged Visits From Her Niece's Children by Teaching Them Verses From the Bible
"What has become of those two children who visited you so often?" asked one West side woman of another. The other smiled discreetly.
"They are the children of my niece, and she was making a convenience of me. Of course I love the children, but I never allow myself to become much of a victim of imposition. My niece is an extremely gay young widow, and she does not like to take care of her children. She is fond of shopping, matinees, afternoon teas and everything, in short, which takes her away from home, and she got into a habit of sending her children over to my house for me to take care of whenever she wished to gad about. I decided it was time to break up the habit, for her own good and that of the children, as well as mine, so I did."
"I suppose that made your niece angry?"
"Oh, no; it couldn't. I never said anything about it. The last time the children came over I spent the afternoon teaching them verses from the Bible, and they didn't find it sufficiently entertaining. They never came back. Just how they managed to work it out with their mother I do not know, but I suppose they struck or begged off. Of course, she could not object to what I had done, and it proved a very simple solution."
Discouraged Visits From Her Niece's Children by Teaching Them Verses From the Bible
"What has become of those two children who visited you so often?" asked one West side woman of another. The other smiled discreetly.
"They are the children of my niece, and she was making a convenience of me. Of course I love the children, but I never allow myself to become much of a victim of imposition. My niece is an extremely gay young widow, and she does not like to take care of her children. She is fond of shopping, matinees, afternoon teas and everything, in short, which takes her away from home, and she got into a habit of sending her children over to my house for me to take care of whenever she wished to gad about. I decided it was time to break up the habit, for her own good and that of the children, as well as mine, so I did."
"I suppose that made your niece angry?"
"Oh, no; it couldn't. I never said anything about it. The last time the children came over I spent the afternoon teaching them verses from the Bible, and they didn't find it sufficiently entertaining. They never came back. Just how they managed to work it out with their mother I do not know, but I suppose they struck or begged off. Of course, she could not object to what I had done, and it proved a very simple solution."
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Union of Christendom
1900
Plan and Creed Suggested
If by unity is meant uniformity, then it is plain that Church unity is not desirable. For, men have different tastes and preferences in the worship and service of God, as in other things. God has made them so. There is no reason in the world why the Episcopalian should not worship God in a sonorous liturgy and the Friend in the silence of the spirit. No reason why the Presbyterian should not order things by the government of the Presbytery, and the Congregationalist leave the determination of all business to the vote of the Congregation. And so on. But, there is every reason why all should work together in harmonious co-operation for the glory of God and the good of man.
In our nation we have certain rights that are reserved to the states; and certain other interests that are deputed to federal control. In the national defense — we have the army and the navy. In the army, the infantry, the artillery and the cavalry, but all work together under the President as the supreme head. Why can not the denominations federate? Why can they not allow each body individual autonomy, and on certain broad lines? It can be done. It is being done — notably in the Federation of the Free Churches of England, and in certain restricted localities in this country of ours.
As for a common creed — we have one already in the platform of the Evangelical Alliance, which is satisfactory to all the Evangelical churches of Christendom. This is a platform of nine planks, as follows: (1) The divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. (2) The right and duty of private judgment in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. (3) The unity of the Godhead, and the trinity of the persons therein. (4) The utter depravity of human nature in consequence of the fall. (5) The incarnation of the Son of God, his work of atonement for sinners and mankind, and his mediatorial intercession and reign. (6) The justification of sinners by faith alone. (7) The worth of the Holy Spirit in the Conversion and sanctification of the sinner. (8) The immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the judgment of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, with the eternal blessedness of the righteous, and the eternal punishment of the wicked. (9) The divine institution of the Christian Ministry, and the obligation and perpetuity of the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. — JOHN DIETRICH LONG
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 8.
Plan and Creed Suggested
If by unity is meant uniformity, then it is plain that Church unity is not desirable. For, men have different tastes and preferences in the worship and service of God, as in other things. God has made them so. There is no reason in the world why the Episcopalian should not worship God in a sonorous liturgy and the Friend in the silence of the spirit. No reason why the Presbyterian should not order things by the government of the Presbytery, and the Congregationalist leave the determination of all business to the vote of the Congregation. And so on. But, there is every reason why all should work together in harmonious co-operation for the glory of God and the good of man.
In our nation we have certain rights that are reserved to the states; and certain other interests that are deputed to federal control. In the national defense — we have the army and the navy. In the army, the infantry, the artillery and the cavalry, but all work together under the President as the supreme head. Why can not the denominations federate? Why can they not allow each body individual autonomy, and on certain broad lines? It can be done. It is being done — notably in the Federation of the Free Churches of England, and in certain restricted localities in this country of ours.
As for a common creed — we have one already in the platform of the Evangelical Alliance, which is satisfactory to all the Evangelical churches of Christendom. This is a platform of nine planks, as follows: (1) The divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. (2) The right and duty of private judgment in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. (3) The unity of the Godhead, and the trinity of the persons therein. (4) The utter depravity of human nature in consequence of the fall. (5) The incarnation of the Son of God, his work of atonement for sinners and mankind, and his mediatorial intercession and reign. (6) The justification of sinners by faith alone. (7) The worth of the Holy Spirit in the Conversion and sanctification of the sinner. (8) The immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the judgment of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, with the eternal blessedness of the righteous, and the eternal punishment of the wicked. (9) The divine institution of the Christian Ministry, and the obligation and perpetuity of the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. — JOHN DIETRICH LONG
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 8.
Commendation of the Unrighteous Steward (Luke 16:1-14)
1900
Hard Problems of Scripture
Apparent Inaccuracies and Inconsistencies Exploited and Explained
Written for The Ram's Horn by R. A. Torrey, Superintendent, Moody Bible Institute
One of the most puzzling passages in the Bible to many is the story of the Unrighteous Steward, in Luke 16, 1-14. A lady told me yesterday that she had about made up her mind not to teach that lesson. She said: "The three points of difficulty are: First, that Jesus should hold this dishonest scoundrel up for our imitation; second, that the Lord should commend the unrighteous steward; and, third, that Jesus should command His disciples to make themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." Let us take these three points up in order and look right at them. We will soon see that in each point, if we adhere strictly to what Jesus said all difficulty will disappear and the incident, instead of staggering us, will be found to be profoundly instructive.
Why did Jesus hold this dishonest scoundrel up for the imitation of his disciples? He did not hold him up for imitation. He held him up in the first place as a warning of what would overtake unfaithful stewards, how they would be called to give account of their stewardship and their stewardships be taken from them. Having taught this solemn lesson, one much needed today, Jesus goes on to show how the "sons of this world are for their generation wiser than the sons of light." (R. V.) They are wiser on this point. They use their utmost ingenuity and put forth their utmost effort to make present opportunities count for the hour of future need.
"The Sons of Light" oftentimes do not do that. Indeed, how many present day "sons of light," who profess to believe that eternity is all and time is nothing in comparison, are using their utmost ingenuity and putting forth their utmost efforts to make the opportunity of the present life count for the needs of the great eternity?
Jesus does not point to the steward's dishonesty to stir our emulation. That Jesus plainly rebukes. But Jesus points to his good sense in using the opportunity of the present to provide for the necessity of the future. And, even then, He carefully guards His statement by saying that he "is wiser for his generation." He knows only the life that now is and from that narrow and imperfect standpoint he is wiser than is "the son of light" from his broad and true standpoint of knowing eternity, an eternity for which he is not wise enough to wholly live.
There are other utterances of our Savior where wicked or selfish men are held up by way of contrast to show how much more godly men, or even God Himself may be expected to act in the way suggested. (See e. g. Luke 18. 6, 7: 11. 5-8: Matt. 12, 11, 12.) The first difficulty then in the passage has disappeared. We will pass on to the second.
Why did the Lord commend the unrighteous steward? The Lord Jesus did not commend him. If any one will look up the revised version of verse 8, where it is said, "the lord commended the unjust steward" he will find it reads "his lord (i.e. the steward's lord) commended the unrighteous steward." And he only commended his shrewdness. Jesus, so far from commending him, flatly calls him the "unrighteous steward" and, furthermore, just below warns against unfaithfulness in stewardship (vs. 10, 11.) So the second difficulty has entirely disappeared.
But why does Jesus command His disciples to make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness? This difficulty disappears when we get a correct Biblical definition of the terms used. First of all, what does "mammon of unrighteousness" mean? It means nothing more nor less than "money." Money is called "mammon of unrighteousness" because money is such a constant minister to sin and selfishness (as for example in the case of the scoundrel above mentioned) and because "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Ti. 6. 9, 10, 11, R. V.)
Jesus in passing would lift a warning note against the perils of money. He often packed a whole sermon into a single phrase. What does "of" mean? Exactly what the revised version translates it, "by means of." Then what Jesus bade His disciples do was to make themselves friends by means of money, i.e. to so use the money God entrusted to them that they would make friends for themselves by their use of it, and (as the context shows) to make these friends among God's poor and needy ones who would go to "the eternal habitations" and be ready to give us, their benefactors, a royal welcome when our life has ended and so our money failed.
In other words, Jesus simply puts into a new and striking form His oft repeated teaching, not to keep our money, but to spend it in doing good, and so invest it in heavenly and abiding securities (cf. Matt. 19. 21; 25, 35-40; I Tim. 6, 17-19; Prov. 19, 17.)
That this teaching of Jesus was clearly understood by His hearers is evidenced by verse 14, where it is said, "the Pharisees who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they scoffed at Him" (R. V.) So the third and last difficulty has disappeared and this passage stands out in glorious light, teaching with great force a lesson that our day greatly needs to learn, that money is a stewardship and that he who seeks to enjoy it in the brief present and not rather to expend it so that it will bring us interest for all eternity, is a great fool and even the petty shrewdness of the sons of this world rebukes him.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 8.
Hard Problems of Scripture
Apparent Inaccuracies and Inconsistencies Exploited and Explained
Written for The Ram's Horn by R. A. Torrey, Superintendent, Moody Bible Institute
One of the most puzzling passages in the Bible to many is the story of the Unrighteous Steward, in Luke 16, 1-14. A lady told me yesterday that she had about made up her mind not to teach that lesson. She said: "The three points of difficulty are: First, that Jesus should hold this dishonest scoundrel up for our imitation; second, that the Lord should commend the unrighteous steward; and, third, that Jesus should command His disciples to make themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." Let us take these three points up in order and look right at them. We will soon see that in each point, if we adhere strictly to what Jesus said all difficulty will disappear and the incident, instead of staggering us, will be found to be profoundly instructive.
Why did Jesus hold this dishonest scoundrel up for the imitation of his disciples? He did not hold him up for imitation. He held him up in the first place as a warning of what would overtake unfaithful stewards, how they would be called to give account of their stewardship and their stewardships be taken from them. Having taught this solemn lesson, one much needed today, Jesus goes on to show how the "sons of this world are for their generation wiser than the sons of light." (R. V.) They are wiser on this point. They use their utmost ingenuity and put forth their utmost effort to make present opportunities count for the hour of future need.
"The Sons of Light" oftentimes do not do that. Indeed, how many present day "sons of light," who profess to believe that eternity is all and time is nothing in comparison, are using their utmost ingenuity and putting forth their utmost efforts to make the opportunity of the present life count for the needs of the great eternity?
Jesus does not point to the steward's dishonesty to stir our emulation. That Jesus plainly rebukes. But Jesus points to his good sense in using the opportunity of the present to provide for the necessity of the future. And, even then, He carefully guards His statement by saying that he "is wiser for his generation." He knows only the life that now is and from that narrow and imperfect standpoint he is wiser than is "the son of light" from his broad and true standpoint of knowing eternity, an eternity for which he is not wise enough to wholly live.
There are other utterances of our Savior where wicked or selfish men are held up by way of contrast to show how much more godly men, or even God Himself may be expected to act in the way suggested. (See e. g. Luke 18. 6, 7: 11. 5-8: Matt. 12, 11, 12.) The first difficulty then in the passage has disappeared. We will pass on to the second.
Why did the Lord commend the unrighteous steward? The Lord Jesus did not commend him. If any one will look up the revised version of verse 8, where it is said, "the lord commended the unjust steward" he will find it reads "his lord (i.e. the steward's lord) commended the unrighteous steward." And he only commended his shrewdness. Jesus, so far from commending him, flatly calls him the "unrighteous steward" and, furthermore, just below warns against unfaithfulness in stewardship (vs. 10, 11.) So the second difficulty has entirely disappeared.
But why does Jesus command His disciples to make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness? This difficulty disappears when we get a correct Biblical definition of the terms used. First of all, what does "mammon of unrighteousness" mean? It means nothing more nor less than "money." Money is called "mammon of unrighteousness" because money is such a constant minister to sin and selfishness (as for example in the case of the scoundrel above mentioned) and because "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Ti. 6. 9, 10, 11, R. V.)
Jesus in passing would lift a warning note against the perils of money. He often packed a whole sermon into a single phrase. What does "of" mean? Exactly what the revised version translates it, "by means of." Then what Jesus bade His disciples do was to make themselves friends by means of money, i.e. to so use the money God entrusted to them that they would make friends for themselves by their use of it, and (as the context shows) to make these friends among God's poor and needy ones who would go to "the eternal habitations" and be ready to give us, their benefactors, a royal welcome when our life has ended and so our money failed.
In other words, Jesus simply puts into a new and striking form His oft repeated teaching, not to keep our money, but to spend it in doing good, and so invest it in heavenly and abiding securities (cf. Matt. 19. 21; 25, 35-40; I Tim. 6, 17-19; Prov. 19, 17.)
That this teaching of Jesus was clearly understood by His hearers is evidenced by verse 14, where it is said, "the Pharisees who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they scoffed at Him" (R. V.) So the third and last difficulty has disappeared and this passage stands out in glorious light, teaching with great force a lesson that our day greatly needs to learn, that money is a stewardship and that he who seeks to enjoy it in the brief present and not rather to expend it so that it will bring us interest for all eternity, is a great fool and even the petty shrewdness of the sons of this world rebukes him.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 8.
A Dying Man's Fruitless Prayer
1900
A man who had lived a very wicked life prayed one prayer on his death-bed, and that was, "Oh, that my influence could be gathered up and buried with me!" The petition was in vain.
He passed away, but his influence remained behind him, and is still working as a blight upon the lives it touched.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 10.
A man who had lived a very wicked life prayed one prayer on his death-bed, and that was, "Oh, that my influence could be gathered up and buried with me!" The petition was in vain.
He passed away, but his influence remained behind him, and is still working as a blight upon the lives it touched.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 10.
What Makes A Presbyterian?
1900
The Great Churches of Christendom
A Series of Articles From Their Several Leaders Showing What Is Required of Their Communicants in Matters of Doctrine and Duty.
By Dr. W. C. Gray, Editor, The Interior
Strictly speaking, Presbyterianism is a form of church government, but that form is an expression of great principles, principles which were implanted in the bosom of man, illustrated in divine revelation, and crystalized in the only form of government which ever received explicit divine sanction; namely government by the representatives of the people. The primitive family was at once the state and the church; the father of the family being the priest and the ruler of his household. He was the first elder. Aggregations of families were governed by councils composed of these elders. When families increased and became communities the elders ruled through representatives. Thus the ancient and primitive church of God was ruled until the time of Saul. It was a divinely sanctioned theocracy, administered through representatives of the people. The people were rebuked when they desired to substitute a monarchy, a centralized government. The local rule of the elders was continued. Christ found them ruling in the synagogue. Paul instituted them in the churches which he organized. This form of government remains today what it was when Enoch walked with God, when Abraham thrashed the kings, when, at Miletus, Paul bade a weeping adieu to the elders of Ephesus, and when the General Assembly bounced Briggs; a theocracy administered by the representatives of the people. It will continue throughout eternity. When John looked from the cliffs of Patmos into the Golden City, did he see a "prudential committee?" John was a well-posted man, as well as a sweet prophet and a sublime bard; but, to save his soul, he could not have told a prudential committee from a coroner's jury. Did he see a bunch of mitered abbots, big or little, from an acolyte to a pope; anything of that kind or variety? If he had, he would have laid down his spiritual binocular and exclaimed with a sigh, "Where am I?" Nay. He saw four and twenty elders in the exercise of their spiritual functions There were one hundred and forty, and four thousand there already — not a pope nor a prudential committeeman in the whole heavenly country. The brethren of the other communions will all come into the most ancient, the divine and the eternal church of God, at last.
Presbyterianism a Model for Governments
Allow me to assure Drs. Henson and Gilbert, who have so ably and agreeably set forth the claims of their respective denominations, of an abundant entrance. They will wake up on the other side and be in the Presbyterian Church without knowing it. It will be a case of infant baptism. When they come to sprinkle that heavenly infant, Dr. Henson, I will volunteer to hold the child.
The Presbyterian Church, therefore, stands for a government of the people, by the people, and, under God, for the people. Our federal government took Presbyterianism as its model. It does not always realize its ideal. It is the fate of all free governments to fall at times under a dictator. Caesar tramped down the freedom of Rome, the two Napoleons the freedom of France, and a little dictator sometimes bobs up in the Presbyterian Church; but he soon bobs down again.
The doctrine of the Presbyterians is in accord with his polity — the sole sovereignty of God and the perfect freedom of man. The sovereignty of God can receive no help from us, but the freedom of man may receive much. The first element of freedom is knowledge; therefore the Presbyterian who knows his calling is devoted to the education of the people. Thus it has come about that the Presbyterians possess a higher average of education than any other people. They are deeply devoted to the interests of free schools, academies, colleges, schools of every kind and grade. They are rigid in requiring thorough scientific, historical and classical education of candidates for their ministry. It is the highest ambition of father and mother to educate their children.
That men may be free they must be virtuous as well as intelligent. The Presbyterian is therefore a champion for every instrumentality and reform that will elevate the moral standard of men. They are vigorous defenders of the Sabbath, because it is essential to the intellectual, moral and spiritual enlightenment of men. They are uncompromising enemies of the saloon, because it is a chief force in maintaining the devil's institution of human chattelhood. Whatever degrades men enslaves them to their own passions, or to the will of other men is determinedly resisted. They regard the Bible, and therefore they so strenuously defend it, as the magna charta of human freedom, the charter of God, upon which a man may stand and bid defiance to any master, civil or ecclesiastical — to satan, to the pope, to the civil autocrat. We stand in this freedom wherewith Christ Jesus hath made us free. To this Presbyterians have testified with their blood on many a battlefield, with their eloquence on countless platforms and pulpits. See how our Hollanders met Alva, our Orangemen met James, our Roundheads met Charles, our Scotch Irish met George III. They have nailed their doctrine of human freedom fast to their standards.
Characteristics of Presbyterians To-day
Wherein does the present Presbyterian differ from his predecessors? Chiefly in that he knows more — hence he is not so narrow, turbulent or bigoted. He is more liberal with his money because he has more of it. He is more liberal in his charity toward other faiths, because he sees that they are on his side in the great war for Christ's kingdom. He is not so dogmatic and pugnacious, because the more he knows, the more he knows he does not know. He has plenty of information to acquire along that line yet. Our men who know it all are now confined to two classes — old men who stopped acquiring knowledge forty years ago, and young men who have not yet begun to acquire it. They are the fellows who stand ready to explain things to God.
The traditions of Presbyterianism are, as we have seen in the line of a broad and enlightened patriotism. This has its drawbacks so far as the church is concerned, in that our people give almost as freely to outside enterprises and charities as they do to their own, thereby earning for themselves the sobriquet, "God's foolish people." It loses for us much practical sectarian zeal. It is exemplified in the number of men of our faith who occupy positions of great civil responsibility. Our presidents are predominately Presbyterian. Of the present governors of the states there are more than twice as many who are Presbyterians as of any other type.
What is the present chief duty of the Presbyterian? I must say that it is to inform himself more thoroughly of his mission in the world, and to concentrate his strength more closely upon it. He must stop scattering. He cares little about ceremonial, the mode of baptism, etc. He does not believe in the "historic episcopate," nor in anybody's "divine rights."
Cardinal Beliefs of the Church
What he believes in is regeneration, moral reform, education, liberty, human brotherhood and equality before God and the civil law. Let him put his money and his muscle behind his own works. Let him be more watchful in spotting demagogues, civil or ecclesiastical. Let him not allow himself to be diverted from his work by controversies over non-essentials.
It is said by some that Presbyterianism stands for doctrine. No, it does not, in the sense that it is a sexton's guard standing at the mouth of a funeral vault to prevent the stealing of the dead. It stands for living principles toward man and pure worship toward God. It stands resolutely for the Bible because the Bible is its charter of rights, terrestrial and celestial. It stands for God as the universal Sovereign, for Christ as the expiatory Savior, and for man as a lost sinner, whom it is the duty of every Presbyterian to find and bring back to his Father's house.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 9.
The Great Churches of Christendom
A Series of Articles From Their Several Leaders Showing What Is Required of Their Communicants in Matters of Doctrine and Duty.
By Dr. W. C. Gray, Editor, The Interior
Strictly speaking, Presbyterianism is a form of church government, but that form is an expression of great principles, principles which were implanted in the bosom of man, illustrated in divine revelation, and crystalized in the only form of government which ever received explicit divine sanction; namely government by the representatives of the people. The primitive family was at once the state and the church; the father of the family being the priest and the ruler of his household. He was the first elder. Aggregations of families were governed by councils composed of these elders. When families increased and became communities the elders ruled through representatives. Thus the ancient and primitive church of God was ruled until the time of Saul. It was a divinely sanctioned theocracy, administered through representatives of the people. The people were rebuked when they desired to substitute a monarchy, a centralized government. The local rule of the elders was continued. Christ found them ruling in the synagogue. Paul instituted them in the churches which he organized. This form of government remains today what it was when Enoch walked with God, when Abraham thrashed the kings, when, at Miletus, Paul bade a weeping adieu to the elders of Ephesus, and when the General Assembly bounced Briggs; a theocracy administered by the representatives of the people. It will continue throughout eternity. When John looked from the cliffs of Patmos into the Golden City, did he see a "prudential committee?" John was a well-posted man, as well as a sweet prophet and a sublime bard; but, to save his soul, he could not have told a prudential committee from a coroner's jury. Did he see a bunch of mitered abbots, big or little, from an acolyte to a pope; anything of that kind or variety? If he had, he would have laid down his spiritual binocular and exclaimed with a sigh, "Where am I?" Nay. He saw four and twenty elders in the exercise of their spiritual functions There were one hundred and forty, and four thousand there already — not a pope nor a prudential committeeman in the whole heavenly country. The brethren of the other communions will all come into the most ancient, the divine and the eternal church of God, at last.
Presbyterianism a Model for Governments
Allow me to assure Drs. Henson and Gilbert, who have so ably and agreeably set forth the claims of their respective denominations, of an abundant entrance. They will wake up on the other side and be in the Presbyterian Church without knowing it. It will be a case of infant baptism. When they come to sprinkle that heavenly infant, Dr. Henson, I will volunteer to hold the child.
The Presbyterian Church, therefore, stands for a government of the people, by the people, and, under God, for the people. Our federal government took Presbyterianism as its model. It does not always realize its ideal. It is the fate of all free governments to fall at times under a dictator. Caesar tramped down the freedom of Rome, the two Napoleons the freedom of France, and a little dictator sometimes bobs up in the Presbyterian Church; but he soon bobs down again.
The doctrine of the Presbyterians is in accord with his polity — the sole sovereignty of God and the perfect freedom of man. The sovereignty of God can receive no help from us, but the freedom of man may receive much. The first element of freedom is knowledge; therefore the Presbyterian who knows his calling is devoted to the education of the people. Thus it has come about that the Presbyterians possess a higher average of education than any other people. They are deeply devoted to the interests of free schools, academies, colleges, schools of every kind and grade. They are rigid in requiring thorough scientific, historical and classical education of candidates for their ministry. It is the highest ambition of father and mother to educate their children.
That men may be free they must be virtuous as well as intelligent. The Presbyterian is therefore a champion for every instrumentality and reform that will elevate the moral standard of men. They are vigorous defenders of the Sabbath, because it is essential to the intellectual, moral and spiritual enlightenment of men. They are uncompromising enemies of the saloon, because it is a chief force in maintaining the devil's institution of human chattelhood. Whatever degrades men enslaves them to their own passions, or to the will of other men is determinedly resisted. They regard the Bible, and therefore they so strenuously defend it, as the magna charta of human freedom, the charter of God, upon which a man may stand and bid defiance to any master, civil or ecclesiastical — to satan, to the pope, to the civil autocrat. We stand in this freedom wherewith Christ Jesus hath made us free. To this Presbyterians have testified with their blood on many a battlefield, with their eloquence on countless platforms and pulpits. See how our Hollanders met Alva, our Orangemen met James, our Roundheads met Charles, our Scotch Irish met George III. They have nailed their doctrine of human freedom fast to their standards.
Characteristics of Presbyterians To-day
Wherein does the present Presbyterian differ from his predecessors? Chiefly in that he knows more — hence he is not so narrow, turbulent or bigoted. He is more liberal with his money because he has more of it. He is more liberal in his charity toward other faiths, because he sees that they are on his side in the great war for Christ's kingdom. He is not so dogmatic and pugnacious, because the more he knows, the more he knows he does not know. He has plenty of information to acquire along that line yet. Our men who know it all are now confined to two classes — old men who stopped acquiring knowledge forty years ago, and young men who have not yet begun to acquire it. They are the fellows who stand ready to explain things to God.
The traditions of Presbyterianism are, as we have seen in the line of a broad and enlightened patriotism. This has its drawbacks so far as the church is concerned, in that our people give almost as freely to outside enterprises and charities as they do to their own, thereby earning for themselves the sobriquet, "God's foolish people." It loses for us much practical sectarian zeal. It is exemplified in the number of men of our faith who occupy positions of great civil responsibility. Our presidents are predominately Presbyterian. Of the present governors of the states there are more than twice as many who are Presbyterians as of any other type.
What is the present chief duty of the Presbyterian? I must say that it is to inform himself more thoroughly of his mission in the world, and to concentrate his strength more closely upon it. He must stop scattering. He cares little about ceremonial, the mode of baptism, etc. He does not believe in the "historic episcopate," nor in anybody's "divine rights."
Cardinal Beliefs of the Church
What he believes in is regeneration, moral reform, education, liberty, human brotherhood and equality before God and the civil law. Let him put his money and his muscle behind his own works. Let him be more watchful in spotting demagogues, civil or ecclesiastical. Let him not allow himself to be diverted from his work by controversies over non-essentials.
It is said by some that Presbyterianism stands for doctrine. No, it does not, in the sense that it is a sexton's guard standing at the mouth of a funeral vault to prevent the stealing of the dead. It stands for living principles toward man and pure worship toward God. It stands resolutely for the Bible because the Bible is its charter of rights, terrestrial and celestial. It stands for God as the universal Sovereign, for Christ as the expiatory Savior, and for man as a lost sinner, whom it is the duty of every Presbyterian to find and bring back to his Father's house.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 9.
Why Be A Christian?
1900
The Well-Known Business Men's Evangelist Answers This Query of The Ram's Horn
By William Phillips Hall
I answer, first, because God commands me to be a Christian. For He "now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Acts 17:30. To be a Christian means to be obedient to God. To be obedient to God means to do right. If I do right, by becoming a Christian, I am right. For as Faber beautifully writes:
"Right is right, since God is God,
And right the day must win:
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."
If I am not a Christian, if I fail to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, I am wrong. For "to him that knoweth to do good (or right) and doeth it not, to him it is sin." James 4:17. I am, therefore, a Christian because, it would be wrong for me to be anything but a Christian. As obedience to God's laws in nature is necessary to insure His blessings in the natural world, likewise obedience to His moral law is necessary to insure His blessings in the moral and spiritual world. Positive and continued disobedience to God's laws in the natural world results in natural death. Positive and continued disobedience to His moral and spiritual laws results in moral and spiritual death. All those who are not Christians — all those who have failed to "believe on the name of the Son of God," — are "dead in trespasses and sins." For "he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36.
My second answer to the question, "Why be a Christian?" is, because I can become spiritually alive, — "alive unto God," — only by becoming a Christian; and that by being "born again." For "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3. And "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John 3:6. Becoming a Christian is being born again. When my darling baby boy lay dead in his little coffin; when I looked for the last time on earth down upon that baby form, those golden curls, those wee waxen hands, that sweet infant face upon which the lines of sin never had been traced, and, thank God, never would be, I would have given a prince's ransom to have opened once more, in life, those lovely blue eyes, then closed in their last long sleep; I would have gladly given all the property I then possessed on earth, and mortgaged all that I might possess in the future, to have unsealed once more in life those sweet little lips then sealed in death, — but I did not possess the price that would purchase such a priceless boon. But, after all, I had the blessed consciousness of the fact that as that darling babe was one of God's own, an infant Christian, — "for of such is the kingdom of heaven," — I should be privileged to press that loved boy again to my heart in life, in the better, heavenly country above, because God's dear Son had already paid his ransom from death and the grave, as He also did for every one, — and the price was His own precious blood. So with Charlotte Elliott I sing:
"Just as I am without one plea
but that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee,
0 Lamb of God, I come, I come!"
My third answer to your question, "Why be a Christian?" is, that I may be saved from my sins. For "thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins." Matt. 1:21. If I become one of His people, He has promised to save me from my sins; and in meeting the condition I find, from personal experience, that the promise is made good. No sinner lives so low in sin but that the Savior will save him if he will become a Christian. While holding an evangelistic service last spring in one of our eastern towns, I spoke on the text, "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." Prov. 28:30. I illustrated, as best I could, the awful truth of the first part of the text, and then told how God, for Christ's sake, would have mercy on the sinner who forsook his sins and accepted Christ as his Savior. Eleven men then publicly announced their intention of forsaking sin and accepting Christ as their personal Savior.
After the service was dismissed, the leading man of the town, a man whose name is familiar in almost every household in the land, came to me and said: "I know you will be delighted to learn that one of those eleven men who accepted Christ this afternoon was the wickedest man in our town. He not only sold liquor, but committed other crimes of equal magnitude against society. He has just come home after serving a term in states prison, and today gives himself to God." Another friend said: "That man, when he was sentenced to states prison, vowed that when he gat out again he would shoot the man upon whose complaint he was tried and sentenced. When he entered the church this afternoon the man whom he had threatened to kill ushered him to a seat." Several months passed by, then, at the Northfield Christian Workers' Conference, a man of fine appearance held out his hand and said: "I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hall." I did not recognize him at first, he was so changed for the better; but a word from a friend revealed the fact that I held by the hand he who had been "the wickedest man in B — ," but who was now, by the grace of God, a Christian gentleman, a prince of heaven, a son of God!
"He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood avails for me."
My fourth, and last, answer to the question, "Why be a Christian?" is, because it pays. My father told me, when I was a little fellow, that he had become a Christian while listening to a sermon on the text, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these (necessary) things shall be added unto you." Matt. 6:33. I remember the narration of this fact very deeply impressed me as a boy, and as the years went by I learned by personal experience the truth of the text. The best paying investment any man can ever make is the investment of himself in Christ.
Several years ago, while conducting an evangelistic campaign in the city of Boston, I preached on the text that had led my father to Christ. I told my hearers that the promise of the Master was as good then as when it was originally given. One of those who listened was a young man who had apparently done his utmost to secure employment, but without success. Raised in a good home in the country, he had come down to the city expecting to better his condition in life, but failing to find employment, and falling in with sinful companions he soon fell into sinful ways, spent his last dollar, and then went shelterless and hungry, and that in the dead of winter. Like a drowning man grasping for a straw, he accepted Christ as his Savior, thus meeting God's condition for the fulfillment of His promise. He was immediately brought into contact with a man who furnished him employment, together with food and clothing for his pressing need, and returned the next day to tell us how God, for Christ's sake, had pardoned all his sins, and fully provided for his temporal necessities as well. Thus in becoming a Christian, I obey God, receive eternal life pardon of, and victory over, my sins, and have the glorious assurance that I have a home in heaven (as well as on earth) where I shall spend eternity with the loved ones to my heart so dear, and with the altogether lovely and incomparable Jesus, my Master and my God. Why should I be anything but a Christian?
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 10.
The Story of a Race Track Gambler Brought to Christ
1900
Notable Conversions
In a little mission in San Jose, California, a number of earnest Christian workers were holding an enthusiastic meeting, when in strolled a young man twenty-three years of age, uncultured, somewhat ignorant, but well versed in the art of horse training. William Mullen had lived many years with the associates of the race track and had adopted all their habits, and had also received the root of all evil, the desire for money. While he sat listening to many give their experience and tell how God had redeemed them, and others telling how God had kept them and prevented them from a life of shame, in the midst of the testimonial meeting the young man stood up, saying, "You people testify for Jesus Christ, I want to give testimony for the devil — I have served him all my life." What they thought of this is not known save to themselves. But he did not care, for he continued on saying; "I am bad, I have tried to be good, but I can't be good, there is no good in me. You say that Jesus Christ will save me, unless he does I will never be good. For every time I have tried to be good I have failed and I can't be good, but I am going to be good if God will make me good, and I am not going to leave this building until Christ does save me."
He sat down, and at the close of the meeting an old lady invited him to the front to kneel, and while waiting on God for some miraculous power to work upon him, the good old lady by his side kept saying, "Brother are you saved; do you feel you are saved?" Little did she think that she was acting in the person of Satan tempting the young man, for he desired not any such talk. It was an opportunity he wanted to be with the stranger whom he had met, God himself. He wanted God to reveal the light and he desired to be but alone. Getting up he testified that he believed that God would save him, but he was not quite sure.
He knew little of the Scripture, excepting a few passages that were taught him by a gentleman in Washington, D.C., many years ago, when he was an orphan boy with nowhere to go, sleeping under hay stacks, back of boilers, in coal sheds or other places that the boys of the street provided for him. Yet, a few of those verses had sunk deep into his heart. He remembered the kindly words and he remembered the good Sunday School teacher Mr. Clayton, who told him that some day Jesus Christ would save him and make a man of him. Mr. Clayton had met him on 14th Street in Washington, and stopped him, saying, "Little boy, what Sunday School do you go to?" for Mr. Clayton thought he was a good subject for the Sunday School. He looked up into Mr. Clayton's face, and said:
"I dinna gan' to Sunday School."
"Won't you come to my Sunday School?" said Mr. Clayton.
"Naw, I dinna' want to gan' to your Sunday School."
Mr. Clayton coaxed, but his coaxing apparently was all in vain. Finally, looking at the boy he said: "Do you want to go to jail?" Tears now came to the boy's eyes and he looked up into his face and said, "Mister, if you winnit put me in jail, gan' to your Sunday School," thinking that the Sunday School might not be quite as bad as a jail, for he remembered in his early childhood days the big stone wall that surrounded the institution of charity in which he was imprisoned for no greater crime than being an orphan.
And so the next Sunday at the door of old Mt. Zion Sunday School in Washington, D.C., there came a rap. A gentleman invited the stranger who was knocking inside of the church or Sunday School: "Won't you come in little boy?"
"Naw, but if you will, please tell Mr. Clayton I'd oot here."
The gentleman smiled, walked inside and called for the Sunday School teacher, Mr. Clayton, telling him there was a boy at the door.
The good teacher asked the whole Sunday School to promise, and got their promise, that they would not laugh at the strange little boy that was coming in. As Mr. Clayton went to the door he kindly took him by the hand. He looked upon the new scholar dressed up in a coat many times too large for him, covered with ham fat, a large man's pair of pants with the waist pinned around to one side, (possibly it was a horse shoe nail that acted for a button, as such was used commonly by him), but he had his hair combed at least, and it was so uncommon that the good Sunday School teacher who had noticed him many times made a note of the fact as he brought the boy down the aisle, to the sound of the clitter-clatter, clitter-clatter of the shoes that were too large for him.
The Sunday School scholars were compelled to put their handkerchiefs in their mouths to keep from laughing.
The good teacher, who had learned to act in the name of Jesus his Master,. went further than this, and at the close of the Sunday School he said, "William, you must come home with me now and have dinner; Mrs. Clayton wants you to come." All things were prepared for him on that table where he sat down to a nice white table cloth, silver knives and forks, plenty of dishes and good things heaped up purposely for him. It was the first time in his life that he was a guest, and a guest in the name of Jesus Christ.
Many years went by and as some one would say to him while carousing, "All Christians are hypocrites," tears would come to his eyes and he would say, "No, boys, I know better than that, there is one man on earth who is a Christian," and off would go his coat ready to fight as he would repeat, "I know that there was nothing on earth that would cause a man to take me in when I was a boy like Mr. Clayton did, if he was not a Christian." And so a tender spot was gained in his heart, and when the time came that God pressed him and showed him his utter inability to lead a good life without him, he accepted Jesus Christ.
To return to the little mission meeting in California, the young man, having given his testimony, as stated, promised he would return the next night. The next night they asked him to testify for Jesus Christ. Rising, he said, "I am saved, I know that I am saved, for I have not wanted tobacco all day." This was the test that he put God to. He said that if God would save him from the habit that he had followed from his childhood, that he would believe that God had saved him from his sins.
The very next day William Mullen was called to preach. As before said he knew little of the Scriptures, but in the corral, where the horsemen were gathered, he would tell them the wonderful works that God had done for him. He could not declare unto them the Gospel as put forth in the Scriptures, but he would say, "Oh, I know that I am saved, I know that God has saved me for I have not uttered an oath and I could not help swearing before, I have not used any tobacco and I always loved it before, but now I do not care for it. I know that God has saved me, for he has made a new man of me, for the things that I used to love I do not care for any more now, and the things that I did not love I like now. I know and I have heard others say that he has done the same for them, and he will not turn anybody away, for I see that everybody that comes to him gets saved. I know that he will save you because he saved me, and if he could save me he could save anybody on earth."
Many have listened to the glad story, some have accepted it, some now are already in the field repeating the story, some have gone as missionaries, some are ordained ministers of the Gospel, while he goes on his simple way telling that Jesus Christ has died for sinful men.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 11.
Conversion In Childhood
1900
The evangelist of the Free Churches of England, perhaps the greatest living evangelist of the world, Gipsy Smith, is a firm believer in the conversion of children. In an address made by him at a noon prayer meeting in London, and reported in The Christian, he pointed out that many Christian workers testify to having found salvation in the days of youth.
Mr. Smith went on to say that we need a deeper realization of the importance of evangelistic work among the young. We can scarcely begin too early, but we can easily postpone dealing with the question until it is too late, and the child has become a worldling. The late Mrs. Booth once said, "I believe it is possible to be ten minutes ahead of the devil." Save an adult and you save a unit; save a child and you save a multiplication table.
Mr. Smith told of an evangelistic mission in the North of England, at the conclusion of which a critical member grumbled about the only visible fruit being "only a boy." Yet that lad-convert is known today as Rev. Thomas Cook, the esteemed Wesleyan evangelist. At another mission a similar incident occurred, and the people said, "It's only a gipsy boy." That "gipsy boy" is now known as Gipsy Smith.
Mr. Smith added a story — told with a human interest and pathetic touch that moved many to tears — of his own little son. The lad was convicted of his need of Christ under his father's preaching in a meeting at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Many pressed forward to seek the Saviour. The boy stood for a time anxious and weeping, but timid, "the tears running down his face like bubbles in a mountain spring;" but ultimately he walked down the aisle, and entered the inquiry room. Nothing was said until the next morning, when, before daylight had broken, the little fellow crept into his father's room, taking with him a Bible which was a parental birthday gift. He had written, on the title-page, below the name: "Converted July 17, and the Lord added to the Church."
Concluding his appeal, Mr. Smith said that "Christ put heaven's richest diadem on the cradle of every homestead in the land when he said of the little ones, 'of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' "
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 20.
The evangelist of the Free Churches of England, perhaps the greatest living evangelist of the world, Gipsy Smith, is a firm believer in the conversion of children. In an address made by him at a noon prayer meeting in London, and reported in The Christian, he pointed out that many Christian workers testify to having found salvation in the days of youth.
Mr. Smith went on to say that we need a deeper realization of the importance of evangelistic work among the young. We can scarcely begin too early, but we can easily postpone dealing with the question until it is too late, and the child has become a worldling. The late Mrs. Booth once said, "I believe it is possible to be ten minutes ahead of the devil." Save an adult and you save a unit; save a child and you save a multiplication table.
Mr. Smith told of an evangelistic mission in the North of England, at the conclusion of which a critical member grumbled about the only visible fruit being "only a boy." Yet that lad-convert is known today as Rev. Thomas Cook, the esteemed Wesleyan evangelist. At another mission a similar incident occurred, and the people said, "It's only a gipsy boy." That "gipsy boy" is now known as Gipsy Smith.
Mr. Smith added a story — told with a human interest and pathetic touch that moved many to tears — of his own little son. The lad was convicted of his need of Christ under his father's preaching in a meeting at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Many pressed forward to seek the Saviour. The boy stood for a time anxious and weeping, but timid, "the tears running down his face like bubbles in a mountain spring;" but ultimately he walked down the aisle, and entered the inquiry room. Nothing was said until the next morning, when, before daylight had broken, the little fellow crept into his father's room, taking with him a Bible which was a parental birthday gift. He had written, on the title-page, below the name: "Converted July 17, and the Lord added to the Church."
Concluding his appeal, Mr. Smith said that "Christ put heaven's richest diadem on the cradle of every homestead in the land when he said of the little ones, 'of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' "
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 20.
God Redeems Israel
1900
The New York Observer says: "The need of individual Christians and of the church and nation today is the trust, not simply the variable hope, that God will redeem Israel. There is no doubt that Israel needs to be redeemed. There is enough that is wrong with Israel as it is. Israel cannot have the kingdom unless it be made right with God. And the Israel that needs to be redeemed is not simply the visible church, but the whole range and area of human interests, whether private or public, whether secular or religious."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
The New York Observer says: "The need of individual Christians and of the church and nation today is the trust, not simply the variable hope, that God will redeem Israel. There is no doubt that Israel needs to be redeemed. There is enough that is wrong with Israel as it is. Israel cannot have the kingdom unless it be made right with God. And the Israel that needs to be redeemed is not simply the visible church, but the whole range and area of human interests, whether private or public, whether secular or religious."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
Duties We Perform
1900
The Nashville Christian Advocate says: "It has been said that duty is an angel with a sad face, and the saying contains at least an element of truth. Some duties it is easy for us to perform. We take them up with a sense of joy and delight. But some are hard and difficult. The sight of them makes us shudder and draw back. None the less must we look them squarely in the face. It may be that the very things which we regard with most repugnance have in them just the discipline that our souls most surely need."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
The Nashville Christian Advocate says: "It has been said that duty is an angel with a sad face, and the saying contains at least an element of truth. Some duties it is easy for us to perform. We take them up with a sense of joy and delight. But some are hard and difficult. The sight of them makes us shudder and draw back. None the less must we look them squarely in the face. It may be that the very things which we regard with most repugnance have in them just the discipline that our souls most surely need."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
The Right to Restrict Alcohol Traffic
1900
The Interior says: "If a man say he has a right, in the exercise of his personal liberty, to get drunk, and the dealer to sell to him if he wishes to buy — very well, so he has — but the community has violable interests in the transaction, and has a perfect right to protect them. The rapid increase of the traffic makes it certain that drastic, repressive measures are necessary to the protection of the most valuable civil interests of the people."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
The Interior says: "If a man say he has a right, in the exercise of his personal liberty, to get drunk, and the dealer to sell to him if he wishes to buy — very well, so he has — but the community has violable interests in the transaction, and has a perfect right to protect them. The rapid increase of the traffic makes it certain that drastic, repressive measures are necessary to the protection of the most valuable civil interests of the people."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
One Harmonious Plan
1900
The Homiletic Review says: "Science and religion, reason and revelation, Christianity and God, are but parts of one harmonious plan, the elements of which have not been frightened into conflict or out of existence by all the innumerable onsets of infidelity in the past, and will not be by those of the present and the future. Least of all will God, the foundation of all, be bowed out of His universe."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
The Homiletic Review says: "Science and religion, reason and revelation, Christianity and God, are but parts of one harmonious plan, the elements of which have not been frightened into conflict or out of existence by all the innumerable onsets of infidelity in the past, and will not be by those of the present and the future. Least of all will God, the foundation of all, be bowed out of His universe."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
Influence of God's Love
1900
The Sunday School Times says: "Love ever goes out from God, as light and heat over go out from the shining sun as the great central orb of our planetary universe. We can shut away ourselves from the blessed influence of God's love, but we cannot change, or cause to cease, the blessed and ceaseless love of God."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
The Sunday School Times says: "Love ever goes out from God, as light and heat over go out from the shining sun as the great central orb of our planetary universe. We can shut away ourselves from the blessed influence of God's love, but we cannot change, or cause to cease, the blessed and ceaseless love of God."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 21.
Revising The Presbyterian Creed
1900
Dr. Herrick Johnson says concerning creed revision in the Presbyterian Church: "There are five great points that constitute 'the real issue' in the revision movement. Two of the five points are things in the confession, viz: The decree of reprobation and the 'elect infant' clause; and three of the five points are things not in the confession, viz: The love of God for all men, the duty of discipling all nations, and a formulated doctrine of the Holy Spirit. * * A supplemental creed must restate all our essential doctrines, seeking to give them scriptural perspective and proportion and form, and in absolute loyalty to 'the system' that has been our glory and our joy. Personally, I prefer the supplemental creed as the fullest and completest method of adjustment."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 22.
Dr. Herrick Johnson says concerning creed revision in the Presbyterian Church: "There are five great points that constitute 'the real issue' in the revision movement. Two of the five points are things in the confession, viz: The decree of reprobation and the 'elect infant' clause; and three of the five points are things not in the confession, viz: The love of God for all men, the duty of discipling all nations, and a formulated doctrine of the Holy Spirit. * * A supplemental creed must restate all our essential doctrines, seeking to give them scriptural perspective and proportion and form, and in absolute loyalty to 'the system' that has been our glory and our joy. Personally, I prefer the supplemental creed as the fullest and completest method of adjustment."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 22.
Cooperation Among Societies
1900
The Baptist Standard says: "A straw indicating the growth of co-operative relations among our denominational societies is the arrangement made by the Missionary Union with the National Baptist convention and the Lott Carey convention, both composed of Negro Baptists, largely in the South, the latter working more especially in the eastern portions of the South. By this arrangement the union offers to hold itself in the most fraternal relation with respect to work in Africa."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 22.
The Baptist Standard says: "A straw indicating the growth of co-operative relations among our denominational societies is the arrangement made by the Missionary Union with the National Baptist convention and the Lott Carey convention, both composed of Negro Baptists, largely in the South, the latter working more especially in the eastern portions of the South. By this arrangement the union offers to hold itself in the most fraternal relation with respect to work in Africa."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 22.
Being Good Simply To Be Good
1900
The Religious Telescope says: "Men must be good in order to be happy, but he who strives to be good merely for the sake of being or becoming happy is not good. The good are good because they love to be good, not for the sake of securing a reward afterward."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 22.
The Religious Telescope says: "Men must be good in order to be happy, but he who strives to be good merely for the sake of being or becoming happy is not good. The good are good because they love to be good, not for the sake of securing a reward afterward."
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 22.
Notable Men and Women - 2
1900
Count Tolstoi, the famous Russian novelist, neither drinks, smokes, nor eats meat. It is his boast that he does not possess a single article he could possibly dispense with; and he has even refused to receive a bicycle as a present, on the ground that it is a luxury. His recreations are chess and lawn-tennis, at both of which he is adept.
George Muller still lives in good deeds though he has been dead some years. The income for the orphanages he founded in Bristol, England, is not diminishing. Last year it was nearly $190,000. Much of it comes in peculiar form, and shows the influence of Mr. Muller's ideas on devout minds. A large amount, for example, is money that would otherwise have been paid for life and fire insurance, but is contributed as an expression of faith in God for protection instead of trust in insurance companies.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900. p. 23.
Count Tolstoi, the famous Russian novelist, neither drinks, smokes, nor eats meat. It is his boast that he does not possess a single article he could possibly dispense with; and he has even refused to receive a bicycle as a present, on the ground that it is a luxury. His recreations are chess and lawn-tennis, at both of which he is adept.
George Muller still lives in good deeds though he has been dead some years. The income for the orphanages he founded in Bristol, England, is not diminishing. Last year it was nearly $190,000. Much of it comes in peculiar form, and shows the influence of Mr. Muller's ideas on devout minds. A large amount, for example, is money that would otherwise have been paid for life and fire insurance, but is contributed as an expression of faith in God for protection instead of trust in insurance companies.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900. p. 23.
Notable Men and Women - 1
1900
Dr. James M. Gray, who has been engaged in teaching in the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago during the summer, will spend the winter in New England conducting his classes in the synthetic study of the Bible in Boston and elsewhere as usual, beginning in the fall.
Dr. Thomas McClelland, the new president of Knox College, was president of Tabor College several years ago. At that time he wanted a railroad to connect Tabor with the rest of the world. Failing to interest other roads in the enterprise, he built it himself and afterwards sold it on favorable terms to the Burlington.
Major D. W. Whittle, who is said to be dying in East Northfield, Mass., is one of the best-known evangelists in the country. "There Shall be Showers of Blessing" and "I Know Whom I Have Believed" are two of his most familiar hymns. For two years Major Whittle has been confined to his bed by rheumatic fever.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900. p. 23.
Dr. James M. Gray, who has been engaged in teaching in the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago during the summer, will spend the winter in New England conducting his classes in the synthetic study of the Bible in Boston and elsewhere as usual, beginning in the fall.
Dr. Thomas McClelland, the new president of Knox College, was president of Tabor College several years ago. At that time he wanted a railroad to connect Tabor with the rest of the world. Failing to interest other roads in the enterprise, he built it himself and afterwards sold it on favorable terms to the Burlington.
Major D. W. Whittle, who is said to be dying in East Northfield, Mass., is one of the best-known evangelists in the country. "There Shall be Showers of Blessing" and "I Know Whom I Have Believed" are two of his most familiar hymns. For two years Major Whittle has been confined to his bed by rheumatic fever.
—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900. p. 23.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Coin Not Mentioned in Scriptures
1906
Throughout the early part of the scriptures, as well as through the poems of Homer, not a single passage occurs from which we can infer either the use or the existence of stamped money — the 400 shekels which Abraham gave for the cave of Machpelah, for instance, were measured by weight. It is now agreed that the Egyptians had no coined money.
Danger in Amusements
The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations is as fatal to happiness as to virtue; for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures. — Anna Maria Porter.
Throughout the early part of the scriptures, as well as through the poems of Homer, not a single passage occurs from which we can infer either the use or the existence of stamped money — the 400 shekels which Abraham gave for the cave of Machpelah, for instance, were measured by weight. It is now agreed that the Egyptians had no coined money.
Danger in Amusements
The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations is as fatal to happiness as to virtue; for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures. — Anna Maria Porter.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
"Hell," Evangelist's Subject
Wisconsin, 1918
Rev. Robert Moyer, evangelist, will speak at Bethel Baptist church tomorrow night on the subject, "Hell." The sermon last night was on "The Second Coming of Christ."
—Eau Claire Leader, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Jan. 26, 1918, p. 8.
Model African King
1910
The Christian village of Hombo in Africa is a proof of the power of the gospel. At daybreak every morning the horn is blown and the people assemble at the king's house to hear the word of God read, and to praise and pray. Witchcraft and superstition have fallen under the power of the gospel, and the heathens are taking knowledge of it. The native church at Loanda contributes $17 a month for the support of native workers on a native station in the interior of Angola.
The Christian village of Hombo in Africa is a proof of the power of the gospel. At daybreak every morning the horn is blown and the people assemble at the king's house to hear the word of God read, and to praise and pray. Witchcraft and superstition have fallen under the power of the gospel, and the heathens are taking knowledge of it. The native church at Loanda contributes $17 a month for the support of native workers on a native station in the interior of Angola.
Once Enough
1910
"I am not an inquisitive man," said the minister, "but there is one thing I would like to know. Why do people who marry more than once never get the minister who tied the first knot to tie the second or third or fourth?
"I have married enough couples to earn for me the title of marrying parson. Many of those people were prominent enough socially to get their doings recorded in the newspapers and I learn through that medium that a fairly large percentage of them marry again. But they never ask me to officiate.
"Why don't they? Didn't I bring them good luck the first time? Has their experience prejudiced them against me personally, or is there a superstition that prevents a man being married twice by the same minister?
"Even members of my own congregation who marry again seek a strange minister. Why?"
"I am not an inquisitive man," said the minister, "but there is one thing I would like to know. Why do people who marry more than once never get the minister who tied the first knot to tie the second or third or fourth?
"I have married enough couples to earn for me the title of marrying parson. Many of those people were prominent enough socially to get their doings recorded in the newspapers and I learn through that medium that a fairly large percentage of them marry again. But they never ask me to officiate.
"Why don't they? Didn't I bring them good luck the first time? Has their experience prejudiced them against me personally, or is there a superstition that prevents a man being married twice by the same minister?
"Even members of my own congregation who marry again seek a strange minister. Why?"
Envy
1910
Envy is incipient murder; no tender feeling can dwell in the same breast with envy. It will drive every good impulse from the heart, and welcome a brood of vipers that will resort to any method to accomplish their diabolical purpose. — Rev. W. P. Hines, Baptist, Louisville.
It takes seed as well as soil to make things grow.
Brotherly boosting helps more than sisterly sympathy.
Envy is incipient murder; no tender feeling can dwell in the same breast with envy. It will drive every good impulse from the heart, and welcome a brood of vipers that will resort to any method to accomplish their diabolical purpose. — Rev. W. P. Hines, Baptist, Louisville.
It takes seed as well as soil to make things grow.
Brotherly boosting helps more than sisterly sympathy.
Christ Within You
1910
If you wish your neighbors to see what Jesus Christ is like, let them see what he can make you like. If you wish them to know God's love is ready to save them from their sins, let them see his love save you from your sins. If you wish them to see God's tender care in every blessing and sorrow they have, why let them see you thanking God for every sorrow and every blessing you have. Example is everything. — Kingsley.
If you wish your neighbors to see what Jesus Christ is like, let them see what he can make you like. If you wish them to know God's love is ready to save them from their sins, let them see his love save you from your sins. If you wish them to see God's tender care in every blessing and sorrow they have, why let them see you thanking God for every sorrow and every blessing you have. Example is everything. — Kingsley.
Saying Grace
1910
I own that I am disposed to say grace upon 20 other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace before Shakespeare — a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the "Faery Queen?" — Charles Lamb.
I own that I am disposed to say grace upon 20 other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace before Shakespeare — a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the "Faery Queen?" — Charles Lamb.
Strange Juvenile Depravity
1910
An extraordinary case of juvenile crime recently occurred at Rossenfeld, near Munich, where two choir boys have been sentenced to several years' imprisonment for poisoning sacramental wine. The elder boy stole some hydrochloric acid, and the younger who was assisting the priest at mass, poured the poison into the wine. The first person who tasted the wine fortunately noticed that something was wrong, and a strong emetic was administered by a doctor in the congregation.
An extraordinary case of juvenile crime recently occurred at Rossenfeld, near Munich, where two choir boys have been sentenced to several years' imprisonment for poisoning sacramental wine. The elder boy stole some hydrochloric acid, and the younger who was assisting the priest at mass, poured the poison into the wine. The first person who tasted the wine fortunately noticed that something was wrong, and a strong emetic was administered by a doctor in the congregation.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Ministers Aboard Ship
1910
A minister aboard ship has always been taken as a "Jonah sign" by seamen. In recent years, however, this superstition has been modified to a certain extent. A young minister, the seamen believe, will not bring as much of a "Jonah" with him as an old one.
Fate
The feet of Fate are tender, for she sets her steps not on the ground, but on the heads of men. - Homer.
A minister aboard ship has always been taken as a "Jonah sign" by seamen. In recent years, however, this superstition has been modified to a certain extent. A young minister, the seamen believe, will not bring as much of a "Jonah" with him as an old one.
Fate
The feet of Fate are tender, for she sets her steps not on the ground, but on the heads of men. - Homer.
Just Like Eve's Apple
1910
A fruit supposed to bear the mark of Eve's teeth is one of the many botanical curiosities of Ceylon. The tree on which it grows is known by the significant name of "the forbidden fruit," or "Eve's apple tree."
The blossom has a very pleasant scent, but the really remarkable feature of the tree, the one to which it owes its name, is the fruit. It is beautiful and hangs from the tree in a peculiar manner. Orange on the outside and deep crimson within, each fruit has the appearance of having had a piece bitten out of it.
This fact, together with its poisonous quality, led the Mohammedans to represent it as the forbidden fruit of the garden of Eden and to warn men against its noxious properties. The mark upon the fruit is attributed to Eve. Why the bite of Adam did not also leave its mark is not known, but as only one piece seems to be missing its loss is ascribed to the woman.
A fruit supposed to bear the mark of Eve's teeth is one of the many botanical curiosities of Ceylon. The tree on which it grows is known by the significant name of "the forbidden fruit," or "Eve's apple tree."
The blossom has a very pleasant scent, but the really remarkable feature of the tree, the one to which it owes its name, is the fruit. It is beautiful and hangs from the tree in a peculiar manner. Orange on the outside and deep crimson within, each fruit has the appearance of having had a piece bitten out of it.
This fact, together with its poisonous quality, led the Mohammedans to represent it as the forbidden fruit of the garden of Eden and to warn men against its noxious properties. The mark upon the fruit is attributed to Eve. Why the bite of Adam did not also leave its mark is not known, but as only one piece seems to be missing its loss is ascribed to the woman.
Cain's Wife
1910
"I never discuss marriage," said the late Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, to the Womans' Companion, "without thinking of an old colored preacher in my state who was addressing his dark-skinned congregation, when a white man rose in the back of the building."
"Mr. Preacher," said the white man.
"Sir to you," said the parson.
"Mr. Preacher, you are talking about Cain, and you say he got married in the land of Nod, after he killed Abel. But the Bible only mentions Adam and Eve as being on the earth at that time. Who, then, did Cain marry?"
The colored preacher snorted with unfeigned contempt.
"Huh!" he said. "You hear dat, brederen an' sisters? You hear dat fool question I am axed? Cain, he went to de land o' Nod, just as de Good Book tells us, an' in de land of Nod Cain gits so lazy an' so shiftless dat he up an' marries a gal o' one o' dem no 'count white trash families dat de inspired apostle didn't consider fittin' to mention in de Holy Word."
—Amador Ledger, Jackson, CA, Dec. 30, 1910, p. 2.
"I never discuss marriage," said the late Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, to the Womans' Companion, "without thinking of an old colored preacher in my state who was addressing his dark-skinned congregation, when a white man rose in the back of the building."
"Mr. Preacher," said the white man.
"Sir to you," said the parson.
"Mr. Preacher, you are talking about Cain, and you say he got married in the land of Nod, after he killed Abel. But the Bible only mentions Adam and Eve as being on the earth at that time. Who, then, did Cain marry?"
The colored preacher snorted with unfeigned contempt.
"Huh!" he said. "You hear dat, brederen an' sisters? You hear dat fool question I am axed? Cain, he went to de land o' Nod, just as de Good Book tells us, an' in de land of Nod Cain gits so lazy an' so shiftless dat he up an' marries a gal o' one o' dem no 'count white trash families dat de inspired apostle didn't consider fittin' to mention in de Holy Word."
—Amador Ledger, Jackson, CA, Dec. 30, 1910, p. 2.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Why Do Jews Cover Their Heads in the Synagogue?
David Crane, 1959 Newspaper Comic Strip, On Judaism - Why Do Jews Cover Their Heads in the Synagogue? David Crane comic by Winslow Mortimer, Oct. 18, 1959. Learning about the faiths of others. Focuses on Judaism, the respect shown God by covering the head in His presence. Other Jewish symbols are illustrated.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Begin Now
1946
"Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory." Luke 24:26. Read Luke 24:24-21, Colossians 3:1-4.
Each Easter confirms anew the faith that time and death are not the lords of life. Jesus the Christ brought life and immortality to light, as the life and immortality were one and indivisible. "He lived every day of His life," someone said, "as though He was to live forever." The vanquished tomb was only the final proof that death had no dominion over him. Therefore, in the light of Easter life Christian faith takes on a new dimension. We, too, may begin to live as if we were to live forever, matching our steps with His.
The Easter bells sound a jubilant and assuring music; love and goodness, are right to endure, forever; comfort will outlast sorrow and the healings of God's mercy for pain and loss are sure. There will be time enough, the Easter revelation assures us, to finish what in our souls is now unfinished and find what in our hopes is still unrealized. Partings are not forever and the wages of virtue "are going on and not to die." That was the pattern of His life Who gives us Easter morning. By the grace of God we may make it ours.
PRAYER — O Thou Who through Thy Son hast turned the shadow of death into the morning, we praise Thee for the everlasting hopes that now rise within our hearts and for the Gospel which has brought life and immortality to light. Receive our thanksgiving, reveal Thy presence and kindle our hearts with the spirit of the Risen Christ. In the Name of the Risen Christ. Amen.
—The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, April 21, 1946, p. 4.
"Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory." Luke 24:26. Read Luke 24:24-21, Colossians 3:1-4.
Each Easter confirms anew the faith that time and death are not the lords of life. Jesus the Christ brought life and immortality to light, as the life and immortality were one and indivisible. "He lived every day of His life," someone said, "as though He was to live forever." The vanquished tomb was only the final proof that death had no dominion over him. Therefore, in the light of Easter life Christian faith takes on a new dimension. We, too, may begin to live as if we were to live forever, matching our steps with His.
The Easter bells sound a jubilant and assuring music; love and goodness, are right to endure, forever; comfort will outlast sorrow and the healings of God's mercy for pain and loss are sure. There will be time enough, the Easter revelation assures us, to finish what in our souls is now unfinished and find what in our hopes is still unrealized. Partings are not forever and the wages of virtue "are going on and not to die." That was the pattern of His life Who gives us Easter morning. By the grace of God we may make it ours.
PRAYER — O Thou Who through Thy Son hast turned the shadow of death into the morning, we praise Thee for the everlasting hopes that now rise within our hearts and for the Gospel which has brought life and immortality to light. Receive our thanksgiving, reveal Thy presence and kindle our hearts with the spirit of the Risen Christ. In the Name of the Risen Christ. Amen.
—The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, April 21, 1946, p. 4.
Easter: Theme of Reverend Brown
Nevada, 1924
"Easter as the Triune Revelation" was the subject of the Rev. Edward Tanner Brown at Trinity Episcopal church. "Easter is the revelation of the heart of God who answered the triumphant life of the Son by raising Him from the dead," he said, adding, "There is a vibrant life just beyond our vision responding to the life of righteousness. God as shown by the cross and resurrection is a God of love. The character of Jesus was shown by the empty tomb. Love went all the way when He came to this earth for our redemption; it went even as far as a restriction of knowledge, and was shown in weariness of body.
"Jesus was human and fought with human brains and a human body. He achieved a perfect life with the means at our command. He was human and because of the triumph of Easter was shown to be indeed as God. 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.' The divineness of the Saviour was proved at Eastertide. And man — Easter shows the glorious possibilities of our nature. Man is a changeable being, still in the becoming, whose end is yet unknown. We have seen once and for all the power of the life of righteousness. And yet man is still content to live on the plane of his lower nature. The light of the resurrection shows his marvelous possibilities. How can he be content to live on the plane of the sensual when sonship with the Divine is his rightful portion."
—Nevada State Journal, Reno, NV, April 28, 1924, p. 8.
"Easter as the Triune Revelation" was the subject of the Rev. Edward Tanner Brown at Trinity Episcopal church. "Easter is the revelation of the heart of God who answered the triumphant life of the Son by raising Him from the dead," he said, adding, "There is a vibrant life just beyond our vision responding to the life of righteousness. God as shown by the cross and resurrection is a God of love. The character of Jesus was shown by the empty tomb. Love went all the way when He came to this earth for our redemption; it went even as far as a restriction of knowledge, and was shown in weariness of body.
"Jesus was human and fought with human brains and a human body. He achieved a perfect life with the means at our command. He was human and because of the triumph of Easter was shown to be indeed as God. 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.' The divineness of the Saviour was proved at Eastertide. And man — Easter shows the glorious possibilities of our nature. Man is a changeable being, still in the becoming, whose end is yet unknown. We have seen once and for all the power of the life of righteousness. And yet man is still content to live on the plane of his lower nature. The light of the resurrection shows his marvelous possibilities. How can he be content to live on the plane of the sensual when sonship with the Divine is his rightful portion."
—Nevada State Journal, Reno, NV, April 28, 1924, p. 8.
Life Beyond Death
1925
Easter's Revelation Has Opened New Vistas
Natural Science Silent in the Presence of the Great Belief and Expectation
Easter brings completion to the sciences!
All the secular sciences conduct man as far as death, and there they stop. The door of the tomb is a wall, tall, strong and insurmountable by them. Geology, geography, astronomy, chemistry, physiology, biology and its other divisions bring us on, with an always increasing precision, to an understanding of life's functions and activities, up to that point. There they drop us, for beyond death natural science has not learned to travel. It has no formulae to express anything on the other side of the closed door of death.
And after much bruising of brain, and vain beating of hands against that obstacle, it confesses itself beaten, it has come to an impasse, it declares that because it cannot pass, that there is no passage, nothing beyond — the tomb is the end of all!
Either that, or it accepts the Easter miracle — as it must, if it will be fair towards evidence, towards historical revelation and towards theology, "the queen of all the sciences" — and acknowledges that Easter's revelation crowns all human knowledge, and opens before it new, endless vistas for exploration and future progress.
It would be a sorry conclusion to all science if it brought us only to an ending in the corruption, the annihilation of death. And an unsatisfactory ending! For the great majority of mankind never has, and never will believe that the closed tomb ends everything! Life here is too full of inequalities to make that just! The analogies in nature, which find no definite ending for anything else but life, help to prove it untrue! And justness and truth are the keystones upon which natural science builds up all its theories to arrive at ultimate fact.
Science, which is perhaps the projection of the ripest and best of humanity, needs Easter.
For Science cannot avert death! Men live to their threescore and ten, or beyond that for a few years of labor and sorrow, as they did in the Psalmist's days, before science had traveled very far along the roads of development. But since Easter rolled away the wall from the tomb, science may now claim to bring men onto the threshold of a new and glorified life, the resurrection life. The tomb is now but an episode in lives which were — always were — immortal.
Easter shows the tomb is open on the other side from us — open onto a new garden of Edenic soul life, the Paradise of God. And someday it is to open on our side also, and let those blessedly resting ones out into renewed bodily life, which cannot be bound between a birth and a death.
For one man actually, undeniably went through the tomb into that Paradise, and came back at Easter with an everlasting, undying body!
Just as the little crocus looks up stiff and straight, as a prophecy that all the temporarily dead bulbs and roots and seeds will arise in their own time.
Science teaches the imperishability of matter, and it is true logically endowed when, advancing a step, it teaches also the immortality of man.
Then there is but another step onward, to a grateful acknowledgment of the truth taught by the well attested fact of the Resurrection, that as He rose so shall all our dead also arise at the great Easter, which shall fulfill the promise of all the Springs!
It is the mission of the Church, which is His body here and now to complete the thus inspired teaching of the natural sciences, and show us that everyone who really desires so to do may spend eternity along with its King and Owner, after the last Easter has opened forever the tomb of death! — Montreal Family Herald.
Easter's Revelation Has Opened New Vistas
Natural Science Silent in the Presence of the Great Belief and Expectation
Easter brings completion to the sciences!
All the secular sciences conduct man as far as death, and there they stop. The door of the tomb is a wall, tall, strong and insurmountable by them. Geology, geography, astronomy, chemistry, physiology, biology and its other divisions bring us on, with an always increasing precision, to an understanding of life's functions and activities, up to that point. There they drop us, for beyond death natural science has not learned to travel. It has no formulae to express anything on the other side of the closed door of death.
And after much bruising of brain, and vain beating of hands against that obstacle, it confesses itself beaten, it has come to an impasse, it declares that because it cannot pass, that there is no passage, nothing beyond — the tomb is the end of all!
Either that, or it accepts the Easter miracle — as it must, if it will be fair towards evidence, towards historical revelation and towards theology, "the queen of all the sciences" — and acknowledges that Easter's revelation crowns all human knowledge, and opens before it new, endless vistas for exploration and future progress.
It would be a sorry conclusion to all science if it brought us only to an ending in the corruption, the annihilation of death. And an unsatisfactory ending! For the great majority of mankind never has, and never will believe that the closed tomb ends everything! Life here is too full of inequalities to make that just! The analogies in nature, which find no definite ending for anything else but life, help to prove it untrue! And justness and truth are the keystones upon which natural science builds up all its theories to arrive at ultimate fact.
Science, which is perhaps the projection of the ripest and best of humanity, needs Easter.
For Science cannot avert death! Men live to their threescore and ten, or beyond that for a few years of labor and sorrow, as they did in the Psalmist's days, before science had traveled very far along the roads of development. But since Easter rolled away the wall from the tomb, science may now claim to bring men onto the threshold of a new and glorified life, the resurrection life. The tomb is now but an episode in lives which were — always were — immortal.
Easter shows the tomb is open on the other side from us — open onto a new garden of Edenic soul life, the Paradise of God. And someday it is to open on our side also, and let those blessedly resting ones out into renewed bodily life, which cannot be bound between a birth and a death.
For one man actually, undeniably went through the tomb into that Paradise, and came back at Easter with an everlasting, undying body!
Just as the little crocus looks up stiff and straight, as a prophecy that all the temporarily dead bulbs and roots and seeds will arise in their own time.
Science teaches the imperishability of matter, and it is true logically endowed when, advancing a step, it teaches also the immortality of man.
Then there is but another step onward, to a grateful acknowledgment of the truth taught by the well attested fact of the Resurrection, that as He rose so shall all our dead also arise at the great Easter, which shall fulfill the promise of all the Springs!
It is the mission of the Church, which is His body here and now to complete the thus inspired teaching of the natural sciences, and show us that everyone who really desires so to do may spend eternity along with its King and Owner, after the last Easter has opened forever the tomb of death! — Montreal Family Herald.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Worry Causes Death
Illinois, 1916
Mrs. Marie C. Mueller, 43, wife or the Rev. E. L. Mueller, pastor of the German Evangelical church at Eight and Henry street, Alton, died of apoplexy yesterday at St. Joseph's hospital, in Alton. She had been suffering from a nervous breakdown which physicians thought was brought on by overwork in the church and by worry over the opposition of the members to her husband as pastor.
Three years ago, after her husband had been pastor of the church about five years, she received an anonymous letter telling her she was the cause of the members not liking the pastor. She is said to have worried constantly over that. Ten days ago the opposition to the pastor crystallized in a petition of thirteen members requesting his resignation. Before this petition was presented to the church the pastor handed in his resignation and it was voted on, the vote being 80 to 20 in favor of the pastor remaining.
—Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, Illinois, April 14, 1916, p. 2.
Mrs. Marie C. Mueller, 43, wife or the Rev. E. L. Mueller, pastor of the German Evangelical church at Eight and Henry street, Alton, died of apoplexy yesterday at St. Joseph's hospital, in Alton. She had been suffering from a nervous breakdown which physicians thought was brought on by overwork in the church and by worry over the opposition of the members to her husband as pastor.
Three years ago, after her husband had been pastor of the church about five years, she received an anonymous letter telling her she was the cause of the members not liking the pastor. She is said to have worried constantly over that. Ten days ago the opposition to the pastor crystallized in a petition of thirteen members requesting his resignation. Before this petition was presented to the church the pastor handed in his resignation and it was voted on, the vote being 80 to 20 in favor of the pastor remaining.
—Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, Illinois, April 14, 1916, p. 2.
Presbytery Questions
1916
New York, April 11. — The New York Presbytery is today on record 64 to 3 that the biblical story of the virgin birth of Christ and other Bible miracles are not to be accepted too literally.
The action was taken in accepting as ministers three graduates of the Union Theological Seminary, who both orally and in writing refused to affirm the virgin birth story and singly and jointly refused to acknowledge the raising of Lazarus from the dead or the narrative of Jonah and the whale.
—Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, IL, April 11, 1916, p. 7.
New York, April 11. — The New York Presbytery is today on record 64 to 3 that the biblical story of the virgin birth of Christ and other Bible miracles are not to be accepted too literally.
The action was taken in accepting as ministers three graduates of the Union Theological Seminary, who both orally and in writing refused to affirm the virgin birth story and singly and jointly refused to acknowledge the raising of Lazarus from the dead or the narrative of Jonah and the whale.
—Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, IL, April 11, 1916, p. 7.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Pastor Steals a Kiss
1916
For kissing the pretty daughter of a trustee of his congregation, Rev. J. Lewis Evans, pastor of the Congregational church of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, was ordered to resign "at once" by a resolution adopted at a meeting of the standing committee and the trustees. Miss Maude Jacobus, daughter of Edward J. Jacobus, a trustee, was not at the meeting.
The kissing incident is said to have occurred while Mr. Evans was moving his household goods into the parsonage. Miss Jacobus was carrying a framed picture upstairs. Mr. Evans, who is 55, was coming down. The stairway is narrow. They met in the middle and, in squeezing past, Miss Jacobus said the pastor threw his arms about her, hugged her tightly and kissed her "right on the lips."
—Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, IL, April 7, 1916, p. 2.
For kissing the pretty daughter of a trustee of his congregation, Rev. J. Lewis Evans, pastor of the Congregational church of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, was ordered to resign "at once" by a resolution adopted at a meeting of the standing committee and the trustees. Miss Maude Jacobus, daughter of Edward J. Jacobus, a trustee, was not at the meeting.
The kissing incident is said to have occurred while Mr. Evans was moving his household goods into the parsonage. Miss Jacobus was carrying a framed picture upstairs. Mr. Evans, who is 55, was coming down. The stairway is narrow. They met in the middle and, in squeezing past, Miss Jacobus said the pastor threw his arms about her, hugged her tightly and kissed her "right on the lips."
—Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, IL, April 7, 1916, p. 2.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Self-Surrender
1902
There will come to every manly man times in his life when he will see that there is something which is legitimately his, something which he has a right to, something which nobody can blame him if he takes and enjoys to the fullest, and yet something by whose voluntary and uncompelled surrender he can help his fellow man and aid the work of Christ and make the world better.
Then will come that man's trial. If he fails and cannot make the sacrifice, nobody will blame him; he will simply sink into the great multitude of honorable, respectable, self-indulgent people who take the comfortable things which everybody says they are entitled to, and live their easy life without a question. But if he is of better stuff, and makes the renunciation of comfort for a higher work, then he goes up and stands humbly, but really, with Jesus Christ.
He enters into the other range, that other sort of life where Jesus Christ lived. He is perfectly satisfied with that higher life. He does not envy, he does not grudge, the self-indulgent lives which he has left behind. He does not count up what he has lost; he does not ask whether he is happier or less happy than he would have been if he had kept what everybody said he had a right to keep. It is not a question of happiness with him at all, but gradually, without his seeking it, he finds that the soul of the happiness which he has left behind him is in him still. Like fountains of sweet water in the sea it rises up and keeps him a living soul. He has left the world's pleasures and its privileges only to draw nearer to its necessities, which are its real life.
So what he gave he keeps a thousand fold in this present time, and eternity is still before him, in the end everlasting life. — Phillips Brooks.
There will come to every manly man times in his life when he will see that there is something which is legitimately his, something which he has a right to, something which nobody can blame him if he takes and enjoys to the fullest, and yet something by whose voluntary and uncompelled surrender he can help his fellow man and aid the work of Christ and make the world better.
Then will come that man's trial. If he fails and cannot make the sacrifice, nobody will blame him; he will simply sink into the great multitude of honorable, respectable, self-indulgent people who take the comfortable things which everybody says they are entitled to, and live their easy life without a question. But if he is of better stuff, and makes the renunciation of comfort for a higher work, then he goes up and stands humbly, but really, with Jesus Christ.
He enters into the other range, that other sort of life where Jesus Christ lived. He is perfectly satisfied with that higher life. He does not envy, he does not grudge, the self-indulgent lives which he has left behind. He does not count up what he has lost; he does not ask whether he is happier or less happy than he would have been if he had kept what everybody said he had a right to keep. It is not a question of happiness with him at all, but gradually, without his seeking it, he finds that the soul of the happiness which he has left behind him is in him still. Like fountains of sweet water in the sea it rises up and keeps him a living soul. He has left the world's pleasures and its privileges only to draw nearer to its necessities, which are its real life.
So what he gave he keeps a thousand fold in this present time, and eternity is still before him, in the end everlasting life. — Phillips Brooks.
Sermons the Preacher's Deepest Thoughts
1902
"Almost no preacher to-day dwells exclusively upon sin, salvation and the relation of Christ to the sinner," says the Congregationalist, of Boston and Chicago. "Important as these themes are, other aspects of the mission of Christ in the world and of the purpose of Christianity are being brought to the front. We regard this as extremely desirable.
"Preaching is something more than the reiteration of traditional truths in conventional ecclesiastical language. A sermon is the embodiment of a man's deepest and most real thought, phrased in words which everybody can understand and addressed to the real needs of real people.
"Jesus Christ was a popular preacher. He employed parables and talked about the lilies and the clouds, the barrel of meal and the play of little children, and weighed carefully all His words with a view to making the truth which filled and flooded His own soul plain, winsome and powerful in the eyes of others."
"Almost no preacher to-day dwells exclusively upon sin, salvation and the relation of Christ to the sinner," says the Congregationalist, of Boston and Chicago. "Important as these themes are, other aspects of the mission of Christ in the world and of the purpose of Christianity are being brought to the front. We regard this as extremely desirable.
"Preaching is something more than the reiteration of traditional truths in conventional ecclesiastical language. A sermon is the embodiment of a man's deepest and most real thought, phrased in words which everybody can understand and addressed to the real needs of real people.
"Jesus Christ was a popular preacher. He employed parables and talked about the lilies and the clouds, the barrel of meal and the play of little children, and weighed carefully all His words with a view to making the truth which filled and flooded His own soul plain, winsome and powerful in the eyes of others."
Mother
1902
God gave us but one mother. Remember, she has borne for you that which no other human being has or can. Remember that in the natural course of events the grave will in a few years, at most, close over her, leaving you behind. Remember that, when she is gone, you will think of her faults and her failings with pitiful tenderness, and want to cover them from all human eyes. And remember, also, that the deepest sting which sorrow has for us is hidden in those soul-harrowing words. "If I only had!" or "had not!" It would be blessed to live, no matter what the provocation, so that, standing beside an open grave those words could have no sting for us. - Mrs. G. R. Alden.
God gave us but one mother. Remember, she has borne for you that which no other human being has or can. Remember that in the natural course of events the grave will in a few years, at most, close over her, leaving you behind. Remember that, when she is gone, you will think of her faults and her failings with pitiful tenderness, and want to cover them from all human eyes. And remember, also, that the deepest sting which sorrow has for us is hidden in those soul-harrowing words. "If I only had!" or "had not!" It would be blessed to live, no matter what the provocation, so that, standing beside an open grave those words could have no sting for us. - Mrs. G. R. Alden.
God's Mercy
1902
The more we fear crosses the more reason we have to think that we need them. Let us not be discouraged when the hand of God layeth heavy woes upon us. We ought to judge of the violence of our disease by the violence of the remedies which our spiritual physician prescribes for us. It is a great argument for our own wretchedness and of God's mercy that, notwithstanding the difficulty of our recovery He vouchsafes to undertake our cure. Let us, then, draw from our afflictions a source of love, of comfort and trust in God, saying with His apostle: "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." "Blessed are they that mourn, and sow in tears, because they shall reap with joy the harvest of eternal glory." — Fenelon.
The more we fear crosses the more reason we have to think that we need them. Let us not be discouraged when the hand of God layeth heavy woes upon us. We ought to judge of the violence of our disease by the violence of the remedies which our spiritual physician prescribes for us. It is a great argument for our own wretchedness and of God's mercy that, notwithstanding the difficulty of our recovery He vouchsafes to undertake our cure. Let us, then, draw from our afflictions a source of love, of comfort and trust in God, saying with His apostle: "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." "Blessed are they that mourn, and sow in tears, because they shall reap with joy the harvest of eternal glory." — Fenelon.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Talks on American Sunday
1902
Cardinal Gibbons Declares That the Rich Man Desecrates the Day by Newspaper Reading
In his sermon on the American Sunday at the cathedral at Baltimore, Cardinal Gibbons, among other things, said:
"It has been the boast of our country that in no nation of the world was the Christian Sabbath better respected than in the United States, but a close observer cannot fail to note the dangerous inroads that have been made on the Lord's day in this country during the last 30 years.
"The average business man of America is in a state of habitual feverish activity. He rushes through life at full steam. The one aim of his existence is to become rich. Money making is not the means, but the end, of his life. He increases his wealth, not so much for the love of it as from the fascination attached to the accumulation of a fortune.
"On Sunday mornings, as he is debarred from the conventionalities of life in going to his place of business, he seizes the morning paper and devours its contents of 20 or 30 pages, its news of stocks and bonds, or pleasures and amusements, of crime and scandal, until his whole being is saturated with this unhealthy diet. Like animals gorged with food, he spends the morning in a comatose condition."
—The Indiana Democrat, Indiana, PA, Nov. 26, 1902, p. 5.
Cardinal Gibbons Declares That the Rich Man Desecrates the Day by Newspaper Reading
In his sermon on the American Sunday at the cathedral at Baltimore, Cardinal Gibbons, among other things, said:
"It has been the boast of our country that in no nation of the world was the Christian Sabbath better respected than in the United States, but a close observer cannot fail to note the dangerous inroads that have been made on the Lord's day in this country during the last 30 years.
"The average business man of America is in a state of habitual feverish activity. He rushes through life at full steam. The one aim of his existence is to become rich. Money making is not the means, but the end, of his life. He increases his wealth, not so much for the love of it as from the fascination attached to the accumulation of a fortune.
"On Sunday mornings, as he is debarred from the conventionalities of life in going to his place of business, he seizes the morning paper and devours its contents of 20 or 30 pages, its news of stocks and bonds, or pleasures and amusements, of crime and scandal, until his whole being is saturated with this unhealthy diet. Like animals gorged with food, he spends the morning in a comatose condition."
—The Indiana Democrat, Indiana, PA, Nov. 26, 1902, p. 5.
A Turkey's Opinion
1902
"What dost thou think of drumsticks?"
I asked a barnyard bird.
He grinned a turkey grin, and then
He answered me this word:
"They're good to eat, they're good to beat,
But sure as I am living,
They're best to run away with
The week before Thanksgiving."
—Anna M. Pratt.
"What dost thou think of drumsticks?"
I asked a barnyard bird.
He grinned a turkey grin, and then
He answered me this word:
"They're good to eat, they're good to beat,
But sure as I am living,
They're best to run away with
The week before Thanksgiving."
—Anna M. Pratt.
A Thankful Note
1902
Let's be thankful that we're livin',
That the good God is forgivin',
That His heaven ain't far above us,
That His world has friends to love us;
That for all its sorrows — sighs,
Weary hearts and weeping eyes,
We can see bright suns arise
In the stormiest o' skies.
Human Vanity
Don't imitate the turkey's strut,
Because he has you beat.
You may be quite as handsome, but
You aren't good to eat.
Let's be thankful that we're livin',
That the good God is forgivin',
That His heaven ain't far above us,
That His world has friends to love us;
That for all its sorrows — sighs,
Weary hearts and weeping eyes,
We can see bright suns arise
In the stormiest o' skies.
Human Vanity
Don't imitate the turkey's strut,
Because he has you beat.
You may be quite as handsome, but
You aren't good to eat.
A World Beautiful
1902
Don't crowd your world with hate, anger, envy, regrets, fears, disorder, discord and disharmony. Every second brighten your world with love and joy and peace and hope, every minute expand your world by unfolding yourself. Every hour open your eyes wider to the grand and beautiful sights in your world; open your ears to the delightful and inspiring strains of divine music which comes of love, brotherhood, tenderness, kindness, gentleness, cheerfulness and contentment. Then from hour to hour, day by day, year by year your world will become more beautiful.
Don't crowd your world with hate, anger, envy, regrets, fears, disorder, discord and disharmony. Every second brighten your world with love and joy and peace and hope, every minute expand your world by unfolding yourself. Every hour open your eyes wider to the grand and beautiful sights in your world; open your ears to the delightful and inspiring strains of divine music which comes of love, brotherhood, tenderness, kindness, gentleness, cheerfulness and contentment. Then from hour to hour, day by day, year by year your world will become more beautiful.
The Way to the Cross
1902
None of us can tell for what God is educating us. We fret and murmur at the narrow sound and daily task of ordinary life, not realizing that it is only thus that we can be prepared for the high and holy office which awaits us. We must descend before we can ascend. We must take the way of the cross submissively and patiently if we would tread the way of light. We must endure the polishing if we would be shafts in the quiver of Emmanuel. God's will comes to thee and me in daily circumstances, in little things usually as in great; meet them bravely; be at your best always, though the occasion be one of the very least; dignify the smallest summons by the greatness of your response. — F. B. Meyer.
None of us can tell for what God is educating us. We fret and murmur at the narrow sound and daily task of ordinary life, not realizing that it is only thus that we can be prepared for the high and holy office which awaits us. We must descend before we can ascend. We must take the way of the cross submissively and patiently if we would tread the way of light. We must endure the polishing if we would be shafts in the quiver of Emmanuel. God's will comes to thee and me in daily circumstances, in little things usually as in great; meet them bravely; be at your best always, though the occasion be one of the very least; dignify the smallest summons by the greatness of your response. — F. B. Meyer.
Sitting Still
1902
To the best comes the time when their very good is evil spoken of. It takes goodness to understand goodness. The pure in heart see God, and only such can recognize the life of God when manifested in the saints. Few trials are more keen than the misrepresentation of goodness. An evil motive imputed to a saintly deed is as the sting of a serpent. The clouds of defamation lower at some time over every saintly heart. The life of the saint is hidden and cannot be understood by the worldling. "Sitting still" is the only possibility. Time exerts a remedial influence, and such remedy that it cannot exert the One to whom the saints are dead will. He will bring out our goodness as the light and our righteousness as the noonday. — Episcopal Recorder.
To the best comes the time when their very good is evil spoken of. It takes goodness to understand goodness. The pure in heart see God, and only such can recognize the life of God when manifested in the saints. Few trials are more keen than the misrepresentation of goodness. An evil motive imputed to a saintly deed is as the sting of a serpent. The clouds of defamation lower at some time over every saintly heart. The life of the saint is hidden and cannot be understood by the worldling. "Sitting still" is the only possibility. Time exerts a remedial influence, and such remedy that it cannot exert the One to whom the saints are dead will. He will bring out our goodness as the light and our righteousness as the noonday. — Episcopal Recorder.
Spear Points
1902
Purpose is what gives life a meaning.
Circumstances may change, but God never does.
The breadth of Christianity depends on its depth.
God puts consolation only where He has first put pain.
Early athletics will not suffice for the heavenly race.
In this life there is but one sure happiness— to live for others.
Expect God to help you when you have prayed for His assistance.
True greatness is ability to serve coupled with a meek and quiet spirit.
When the Lord is in our hearts His hand will be seen in our works.
Never take your eye off the cross, as all the lines of salvation center there.
Poverty of possessions need not be discreditable; poverty of life always is.
A thousand times better are the men who do than the weaklings who only know.
The loving judgments of friends are harder to bear than the harsh ones of foes.
All God's providences are but His touches of the strings of the great instrument of the world.
When you step up on one promise you will always find a higher and a better one before you.
The self-centered life comes to naught; the Christ-centered life ever continues in enlargement.
There are some lessons which can only be learned in the garden, and beneath the shadow of the cross. — The Ram's Horn.
Purpose is what gives life a meaning.
Circumstances may change, but God never does.
The breadth of Christianity depends on its depth.
God puts consolation only where He has first put pain.
Early athletics will not suffice for the heavenly race.
In this life there is but one sure happiness— to live for others.
Expect God to help you when you have prayed for His assistance.
True greatness is ability to serve coupled with a meek and quiet spirit.
When the Lord is in our hearts His hand will be seen in our works.
Never take your eye off the cross, as all the lines of salvation center there.
Poverty of possessions need not be discreditable; poverty of life always is.
A thousand times better are the men who do than the weaklings who only know.
The loving judgments of friends are harder to bear than the harsh ones of foes.
All God's providences are but His touches of the strings of the great instrument of the world.
When you step up on one promise you will always find a higher and a better one before you.
The self-centered life comes to naught; the Christ-centered life ever continues in enlargement.
There are some lessons which can only be learned in the garden, and beneath the shadow of the cross. — The Ram's Horn.
More Words of Wisdom
1902
Sincerity is the secret of success.
It takes more than money to make a living.
Self-surrender is the secret of soul-satisfaction.
The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
To break our mirrors will not make us beautiful.
The heart is only clean when it is wholly clean.
You cannot make an enemy without losing a friend.
Sympathy for others is a salve for our own sorrows.
It is a vain hope that the chains of habit will rust off.
The supreme art of living may be summed up in giving.
When a father is too tender his sons usually balance things.
Life is a man's opportunity for the realization of his ideals.
To be at our best to-morrow we must be at our best to-day.
When ambition is the child of envy it will be the mother of sorrows.
The lights of the world are not illumined by the fires of controversy.
He who has friends only to use them will have them only to lose them. — Ram's Horn.
Sincerity is the secret of success.
It takes more than money to make a living.
Self-surrender is the secret of soul-satisfaction.
The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
To break our mirrors will not make us beautiful.
The heart is only clean when it is wholly clean.
You cannot make an enemy without losing a friend.
Sympathy for others is a salve for our own sorrows.
It is a vain hope that the chains of habit will rust off.
The supreme art of living may be summed up in giving.
When a father is too tender his sons usually balance things.
Life is a man's opportunity for the realization of his ideals.
To be at our best to-morrow we must be at our best to-day.
When ambition is the child of envy it will be the mother of sorrows.
The lights of the world are not illumined by the fires of controversy.
He who has friends only to use them will have them only to lose them. — Ram's Horn.
Words of Wisdom
Words of Wisdom
1902
In the noonday of life only short shadows are cast.
In order to find out how strong a stick is you must break it.
A good fisherman always provides himself with plenty of bait.
The man who borrows and seldom pays is one who seldom lends.
When you confess a fault to a friend, confess one that you know he also has.
The man who is above imitating the methods of others need never be afraid of being imitated.
Sometimes the loftiest monument towers above the grave of the poet who starved to death.
Women were formed to temper mankind and soothe them into tenderness and compassion. — Addison.
Those who go slowly through life have an opportunity of reading the guideboards along the way. The riches of the world and the
gratifications they afford are too apt when their evil tendency is not opposed by a principle of religion to beget that friendship for the world which is enmity to God.
Prayer is so mighty an instrument that no one ever thoroughly mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man's wants and God's goodness. — Hugh Miller.
Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brains of the wildest dreamer. — Sir Walter Scott.
Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable. — La Fontaine.
Prudence yields to circumstance, folly quarrels with it, pride defies it, wisdom uses it and genius controls it. — J. S. Blackie.
1902
In the noonday of life only short shadows are cast.
In order to find out how strong a stick is you must break it.
A good fisherman always provides himself with plenty of bait.
The man who borrows and seldom pays is one who seldom lends.
When you confess a fault to a friend, confess one that you know he also has.
The man who is above imitating the methods of others need never be afraid of being imitated.
Sometimes the loftiest monument towers above the grave of the poet who starved to death.
Women were formed to temper mankind and soothe them into tenderness and compassion. — Addison.
Those who go slowly through life have an opportunity of reading the guideboards along the way. The riches of the world and the
gratifications they afford are too apt when their evil tendency is not opposed by a principle of religion to beget that friendship for the world which is enmity to God.
Prayer is so mighty an instrument that no one ever thoroughly mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man's wants and God's goodness. — Hugh Miller.
Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brains of the wildest dreamer. — Sir Walter Scott.
Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable. — La Fontaine.
Prudence yields to circumstance, folly quarrels with it, pride defies it, wisdom uses it and genius controls it. — J. S. Blackie.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
She Prayed For Bread, But Not For Butter
1901
Olivia was visiting her grandmother. Olivia's grandmother had money to burn. So have Olivia's father and mother. Although the father and mother had come to the wicked city of New York to burn some of their money, leaving Olivia with grandmamma in the west, they are nevertheless very good people. Olivia is well acquainted with the Lord's Prayer. One morning she climbed into bed with her grandmother and began to make conversation.
"At home," she said, "we often pray God to bring us bread."
"Do you?" said grandmamma. "And butter, too, I suppose?"
"Oh, no!" said Olivia airily. "The butter man brings the butter." — New York Sun.
Olivia was visiting her grandmother. Olivia's grandmother had money to burn. So have Olivia's father and mother. Although the father and mother had come to the wicked city of New York to burn some of their money, leaving Olivia with grandmamma in the west, they are nevertheless very good people. Olivia is well acquainted with the Lord's Prayer. One morning she climbed into bed with her grandmother and began to make conversation.
"At home," she said, "we often pray God to bring us bread."
"Do you?" said grandmamma. "And butter, too, I suppose?"
"Oh, no!" said Olivia airily. "The butter man brings the butter." — New York Sun.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Address Against Weltmerism
1901
"Weltmerism Destroyed and Zion Ever Triumphant." This is the subject of an address to be delivered by Rev. James R. Adams, B. D., tomorrow afternoon, at 3 o'clock, in Zion tabernacle, No. 608 Commercial street. S. A. Weltmer and his secretary, J. H. Kelly, have pleaded guilty and thrown themselves upon the mercy of the federal court, which recently tried them for fraud in Kansas City. Thus perish, one by one, the satanic counterfeits of God's work of free grace in Zion. Those who have been deceived and robbed by the so-culled "magnetic healing" are especially welcome at this service, All seats free to everybody. Free-will offerings. "Christ is all and in all." — J. R. A.
—Waterloo Daily Reporter, Waterloo, IA, April 27, 1901, p. 4.
Excerpt from The Mystery Revealed or the Hand-Book of Weltmerism, By Prof. S.A. Weltmer, 1901:
WELTMERISM
Weltmerism is the term applied to the teachings of the author by a magazine writer who paid him a visit in May, 1899. It was used by him to distinguish the teachings of the author from those of other exponents of Mental Healing and its allied branches.
The peculiar feature of my teaching is this: I believe that every person is born with equal rights; that the spiritual part of each person is born in the image and likeness of the Creator; that the same power which produced man produced everything; and that all things, animate and inanimate, have their continual being in accordance with the laws of this Creator.
I believe the power that created man is omnipotent, possesses all the power there is; hence, the power is all in the Creator. This Creator in action is Law, and this Creator is known by the names Law, Law of Nature, Law of Being, God, and designated by Jesus Christ as "My Father which is in Heaven."
Man's power does not consist in any inherent, inborn, latent ability that he may possess; his power consists solely in his ability to grasp the meaning of the Law that governs him and to comply with it. His knowledge of this Law and how to comply with it constitutes his power. I recognize in the language contained in Matt. 18:19, a statement biblical in its origin and both theological and scientific in its meaning; and take the position that a thorough understanding of the language couched in that verse of scripture forms the basis of compromise and unity between science and religion. I believe the religion Christ taught and the works He did were based upon scientific truths, and when applied according to His instruction are capable of demonstration. I believe Christ's entire teachings are as true to-day as they were the day He gave them utterance. I do not believe Christ would teach us to do a work we cannot do.
A strictly undeviating course, based upon the principle involved in His aforesaid statement, constitutes the fundamental doctrine of Weltmerism. Based upon this principle, I claim that any person in the world can do what I do if he knows what I know. The purpose of my life is to teach others what I know. I have no creed except the following: "I do not claim for myself any power or virtue that I do not freely concede to all other men; I do claim for myself all power and virtue conceded to any other man."
"Weltmerism Destroyed and Zion Ever Triumphant." This is the subject of an address to be delivered by Rev. James R. Adams, B. D., tomorrow afternoon, at 3 o'clock, in Zion tabernacle, No. 608 Commercial street. S. A. Weltmer and his secretary, J. H. Kelly, have pleaded guilty and thrown themselves upon the mercy of the federal court, which recently tried them for fraud in Kansas City. Thus perish, one by one, the satanic counterfeits of God's work of free grace in Zion. Those who have been deceived and robbed by the so-culled "magnetic healing" are especially welcome at this service, All seats free to everybody. Free-will offerings. "Christ is all and in all." — J. R. A.
—Waterloo Daily Reporter, Waterloo, IA, April 27, 1901, p. 4.
Excerpt from The Mystery Revealed or the Hand-Book of Weltmerism, By Prof. S.A. Weltmer, 1901:
WELTMERISM
Weltmerism is the term applied to the teachings of the author by a magazine writer who paid him a visit in May, 1899. It was used by him to distinguish the teachings of the author from those of other exponents of Mental Healing and its allied branches.
The peculiar feature of my teaching is this: I believe that every person is born with equal rights; that the spiritual part of each person is born in the image and likeness of the Creator; that the same power which produced man produced everything; and that all things, animate and inanimate, have their continual being in accordance with the laws of this Creator.
I believe the power that created man is omnipotent, possesses all the power there is; hence, the power is all in the Creator. This Creator in action is Law, and this Creator is known by the names Law, Law of Nature, Law of Being, God, and designated by Jesus Christ as "My Father which is in Heaven."
Man's power does not consist in any inherent, inborn, latent ability that he may possess; his power consists solely in his ability to grasp the meaning of the Law that governs him and to comply with it. His knowledge of this Law and how to comply with it constitutes his power. I recognize in the language contained in Matt. 18:19, a statement biblical in its origin and both theological and scientific in its meaning; and take the position that a thorough understanding of the language couched in that verse of scripture forms the basis of compromise and unity between science and religion. I believe the religion Christ taught and the works He did were based upon scientific truths, and when applied according to His instruction are capable of demonstration. I believe Christ's entire teachings are as true to-day as they were the day He gave them utterance. I do not believe Christ would teach us to do a work we cannot do.
A strictly undeviating course, based upon the principle involved in His aforesaid statement, constitutes the fundamental doctrine of Weltmerism. Based upon this principle, I claim that any person in the world can do what I do if he knows what I know. The purpose of my life is to teach others what I know. I have no creed except the following: "I do not claim for myself any power or virtue that I do not freely concede to all other men; I do claim for myself all power and virtue conceded to any other man."
A Sporting Parson
1902
Miss Mary Louise Boyle, who counted Dickens, Lever, Browning, Lowell and Tennyson among her friends, records in her "Book" a story about a sporting parson she knew, the Rev. Loraine Smith, who hunted in purple instead of pink because the former was the correct episcopal color:
"His reverence was always well mounted and was a keen sportsman. He had a pretty living and a good church in the neighborhood, but he surprised his parishioners very much by altering the whole disposition of the tombstones. He thought they looked awkward and untidy in their actual position, so he had them all taken up and rearranged according to his fancy in lines, crosses, squares, etc. One Sunday morning, a very cold winter's day, he had performed the service to a scanty congregation, and on going up into his pulpit, instead of opening his sermon book, he pronounced the following address: 'My dear friends, you require it I will preach you the sermon which I have brought with me, but if you are as cold and hungry as I am I think you will prefer going with me to the rectory, where you will find some cold beef and some good ale.'"
Miss Mary Louise Boyle, who counted Dickens, Lever, Browning, Lowell and Tennyson among her friends, records in her "Book" a story about a sporting parson she knew, the Rev. Loraine Smith, who hunted in purple instead of pink because the former was the correct episcopal color:
"His reverence was always well mounted and was a keen sportsman. He had a pretty living and a good church in the neighborhood, but he surprised his parishioners very much by altering the whole disposition of the tombstones. He thought they looked awkward and untidy in their actual position, so he had them all taken up and rearranged according to his fancy in lines, crosses, squares, etc. One Sunday morning, a very cold winter's day, he had performed the service to a scanty congregation, and on going up into his pulpit, instead of opening his sermon book, he pronounced the following address: 'My dear friends, you require it I will preach you the sermon which I have brought with me, but if you are as cold and hungry as I am I think you will prefer going with me to the rectory, where you will find some cold beef and some good ale.'"
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Two Pictures
1902
It is related that two painters each painted a picture to illustrate his conception of rest. The first chose for his scene a still, lone lake among the far-off mountains. The second threw on his canvas a thundering waterfall, with a fragile birch tree bending over the foam. At the fork of the branch almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin sat on its nest.
Henry Drummond, referring to the two paintings, so unlike in their make-up, said:
"The first was only 'stagnation;' the last was 'rest.' Christ's life was outwardly one of the most troubled lives that was ever lived; tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time, till the worn body was laid in the grave.
"But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might have gone to Him and found rest. And even when His enemies were dogging Him in the streets of Jerusalem He turned to His disciples and offered them, as a last legacy, 'My peace.'"
It is related that two painters each painted a picture to illustrate his conception of rest. The first chose for his scene a still, lone lake among the far-off mountains. The second threw on his canvas a thundering waterfall, with a fragile birch tree bending over the foam. At the fork of the branch almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin sat on its nest.
Henry Drummond, referring to the two paintings, so unlike in their make-up, said:
"The first was only 'stagnation;' the last was 'rest.' Christ's life was outwardly one of the most troubled lives that was ever lived; tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time, till the worn body was laid in the grave.
"But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might have gone to Him and found rest. And even when His enemies were dogging Him in the streets of Jerusalem He turned to His disciples and offered them, as a last legacy, 'My peace.'"
How a Business Man Was Saved
1902
An incident is related which occurred during Mr. Finney's meetings in New York City and which well illustrates the value of a little tact in the great struggle for souls. The big cutlery firm of Sheffield, England, had a branch house in New York. The manager was a partner of the firm, and very worldly. One of his clerks, who had been converted in the meetings, invited his employer to attend. One evening he was there, and sat just across the aisle from Mr. Arthur Tappan. He appeared affected during the sermon, and Mr. Tappan kept his eye on him. After the dismissal, Mr. Tappan stepped quickly across the aisle, introduced himself, and invited him to stay to the after-service. The gentleman tried to excuse himself and get away, but Mr. Tappan caught hold of the button on his coat and said, "Now, do stay; I know you will enjoy it;" and he was so kind and gentlemanly that the cutlery man could not well refuse. He stayed, and was converted. Afterwards he said, "An ounce of weight upon my coat-button saved my soul."
Man's Influence
1902
The only responsibility that a man cannot not evade in this life is the one he thinks of least — his personal influence. Man's conscious influence, when he is on dress parade, when he is posing to impress those around him — is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent, subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, the trifles he never considers — is tremendous. Every moment of life he is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silently and unconsciously is this influence working that man may forget that it exists. — W. G. Jordan.
The only responsibility that a man cannot not evade in this life is the one he thinks of least — his personal influence. Man's conscious influence, when he is on dress parade, when he is posing to impress those around him — is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent, subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, the trifles he never considers — is tremendous. Every moment of life he is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silently and unconsciously is this influence working that man may forget that it exists. — W. G. Jordan.
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