New York, 1895
For some time past there has been a movement on foot to organize a Jamaica branch of the young men's Christian association. The object is to unite Christian young men of the evangelical churches in fellowship and effort. At a meeting Wednesday evening an organization was effected by electing William A. Shannon, president, and Wm. Stanton, secretary. A committee of two from each church will be appointed by the several pastors.
—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 1, 1895, p. 12.
Showing posts with label men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label men. Show all posts
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Woman's Voice Never Heard Here
(Click the picture for bigger view)1920
On Mount Athos, the "Holy Mountain of Greece," no females, human or animal, may ever tread. On top of the mountain are located twenty monasteries which house 3,000 monks and as many laymen. These buildings date back more than a thousand years and contain many valuable religious works. The monks have a sort of republic there and have preserved their independence and ceremonies thru three centuries of Moslem rule.
—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 11.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Keeps Women Silent, How Does He Do It?
1920
Pastor Finds Long-sought-for Method of Hushing Talkative Sex.
Women are not allowed to preach or to bear rule or authority in the church at Zion City, Ill., near Chicago.
"I will not allow any woman to come on the platform and preach or teach," said Overseer Voliva. "Paul said, 'Let the women keep silent in the churches,' and in Zion no woman can be a public speaker. No woman is entitled to bear rule or to be placed in authority. When the apostles were selected, there wasn't a woman among them. When God chose a prophet, or a messenger, he always chose a man."
Here are some of the things that a woman can do, according to Voliva:
She can stay at home and mend socks; wash the dishes; knit and darn; cook; keep her home and her children clean and tidy, and she can be an angel of mercy to the sick and distressed. But she can't preach.
Besides accepting the apostle Paul as an authority on woman's place. Voliva also takes the position that woman was to be subject to man, from creation down. Voliva gives as his reasons for this position that Adam was first created, then woman was created from the rib of man, and that Eve was first in the transgressions in the Garden of Eden. She didn't keep her place, and not only got into trouble, but dragged man into trouble after her.
—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 5.
Pastor Finds Long-sought-for Method of Hushing Talkative Sex.
Women are not allowed to preach or to bear rule or authority in the church at Zion City, Ill., near Chicago.
"I will not allow any woman to come on the platform and preach or teach," said Overseer Voliva. "Paul said, 'Let the women keep silent in the churches,' and in Zion no woman can be a public speaker. No woman is entitled to bear rule or to be placed in authority. When the apostles were selected, there wasn't a woman among them. When God chose a prophet, or a messenger, he always chose a man."
Here are some of the things that a woman can do, according to Voliva:
She can stay at home and mend socks; wash the dishes; knit and darn; cook; keep her home and her children clean and tidy, and she can be an angel of mercy to the sick and distressed. But she can't preach.
Besides accepting the apostle Paul as an authority on woman's place. Voliva also takes the position that woman was to be subject to man, from creation down. Voliva gives as his reasons for this position that Adam was first created, then woman was created from the rib of man, and that Eve was first in the transgressions in the Garden of Eden. She didn't keep her place, and not only got into trouble, but dragged man into trouble after her.
—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 5.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Free Lunch Goes With Religion
Illinois, 1905
Inducements to Be Offered Bloomington Men to Attend Church
Bloomington, Illinois, March 7 — To draw the men to the prayer meeting has been a problem before the congregation of the First Methodist church of this city for a long time. This week a new attraction will be introduced. A free lunch will be served between the hours of 6:30 and 7:15 o'clock for all business men and mechanics. It is believed that the merchants, clerks, and men in the shops will go from their work at 6 o'clock to the church and after eating remain to the 7:30 o'clock prayer meeting.
—The Daily Review, Decatur, Illinois, March 7, 1905.
Mormons Can Elder Cannon
His Conduct Is Declared to Have Been Unchristian
Salt Lake City, March 7 — Former United States Senator Frank J. Cannon has been disfellowshiped from the Mormon church for "unchristianlike conduct and apostasy."
This action of the church authorities followed a hearing in the city of Ogden before the local bishopric with whom charges had been preferred against Elder Cannon who is editor of the Salt Lake Tribune. The charges were based on editorial utterances of the Tribune including "an address to the earthly king of the kingdom of God." Mr. Cannon admitted the authorship.
Inducements to Be Offered Bloomington Men to Attend Church
Bloomington, Illinois, March 7 — To draw the men to the prayer meeting has been a problem before the congregation of the First Methodist church of this city for a long time. This week a new attraction will be introduced. A free lunch will be served between the hours of 6:30 and 7:15 o'clock for all business men and mechanics. It is believed that the merchants, clerks, and men in the shops will go from their work at 6 o'clock to the church and after eating remain to the 7:30 o'clock prayer meeting.
—The Daily Review, Decatur, Illinois, March 7, 1905.
Mormons Can Elder Cannon
His Conduct Is Declared to Have Been Unchristian
Salt Lake City, March 7 — Former United States Senator Frank J. Cannon has been disfellowshiped from the Mormon church for "unchristianlike conduct and apostasy."
This action of the church authorities followed a hearing in the city of Ogden before the local bishopric with whom charges had been preferred against Elder Cannon who is editor of the Salt Lake Tribune. The charges were based on editorial utterances of the Tribune including "an address to the earthly king of the kingdom of God." Mr. Cannon admitted the authorship.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Lectures on Chastity and Social Purity
Kansas, 1911
Men's Meeting Held
There was quite an interesting event last Sunday afternoon at the Opera House under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A.
The secretary, Britt Harris, had issued tickets to men only and boys over sixteen years of age to a lecture delivered by Dr. Wayne K. Stalnaker of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, who gave his lecture on the subject "Chastity and Social Purity."
The Doctor held his audience for nearly an hour. It was evident that the audience was with him from start to finish, and at the close, each man pledged himself to stand for the motherhood, wifehood, and daughterhood of the city of Ellis.
The song service was in charge of Prof. F. F. Gearhardt who is conducting the chorus at the Methodist Revival. It was a source of inspiration to hear 90 men singing the songs of Zion like camp-meeting folk. Mr. Harris seems to be adept at getting men together and in touch with each other.
—The Ellis Review-Headlight, Ellis, Kansas, 1911.
1910
Families Should Have Dogs
An Edinburgh clergyman says: "Every family should have a dog. It is like a perpetual baby; it betrays no secrets, never sulks, asks no troublesome questions, never gets into debt, never comes down late to breakfast, and is always ready for a bit of fun."
Men's Meeting Held
There was quite an interesting event last Sunday afternoon at the Opera House under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A.
The secretary, Britt Harris, had issued tickets to men only and boys over sixteen years of age to a lecture delivered by Dr. Wayne K. Stalnaker of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, who gave his lecture on the subject "Chastity and Social Purity."
The Doctor held his audience for nearly an hour. It was evident that the audience was with him from start to finish, and at the close, each man pledged himself to stand for the motherhood, wifehood, and daughterhood of the city of Ellis.
The song service was in charge of Prof. F. F. Gearhardt who is conducting the chorus at the Methodist Revival. It was a source of inspiration to hear 90 men singing the songs of Zion like camp-meeting folk. Mr. Harris seems to be adept at getting men together and in touch with each other.
—The Ellis Review-Headlight, Ellis, Kansas, 1911.
1910
Families Should Have Dogs
An Edinburgh clergyman says: "Every family should have a dog. It is like a perpetual baby; it betrays no secrets, never sulks, asks no troublesome questions, never gets into debt, never comes down late to breakfast, and is always ready for a bit of fun."
Monday, June 11, 2007
Where Adam Lives, But Eve is Excluded
1915
The Monastery of St. Peter
Where the white cowled peakhead of Mount Athos rises into the serene turquoise sky and looks down its slopes, solemnly verdured by dark forests and gardened by olive, myrtle and rose, is the most remarkable republic in all the world, into whose arcadian confines came, again the call of war — the world's greatest of wars.
This dominion, at all times on a military footing to repel its one great, human enemy, has passed through many wars with pirate invaders, not to mention the invasion of curiosity of the Byzantine empress, who insisted upon visiting the place to the mortification and scandal of the good men — so there is small wonder that Father Bulatovitch, once a grim soldier, volunteered to go forth and fight for the czar.
Mount Athos is on the peninsula of Saloniki, which territory Greece wrested from the Turks in the last war, says the Louisville Courier-Journal. There are twenty monasteries in the republic, eleven villages and 250 hermitages. The population is composed of more than three thousand monks and as many lay brothers, who are classed as "worldlings." There is an army of fifty Albanian guards stationed at the capital, Karyas, to see that no woman enters. And so rigid is the bar against the weaker sex that not even the female of any animal may be admitted.
In a Romantic Garden Spot
Think of this garden spot, where, despite the iron impress of celibacy, there are romance and poetry in the very air! There is mystery, too, for, looking from the sea, the cloak of the dense forest that lies over the titanic shoulders of the holy mount is full of blue and black shadow and silence; then, grimly medieval, clinging to the side of the elevation, even in the bright sunlight losing none of its impressive character, is the "mysterious monastery" of Simon Peter.
Mount Athos might have still drowsed in the serenity of its recent dream picture days had not Father Bulatovitch, who at one time held a commission in the army of the great white czar, been stirred by the martial spirit and declared his willingness go to war. He had been an officer of the guards and as abbot of a monastery brought something of the military discipline there.
He made it clear he did not intend giving up his religious orders, but, in imitation of the crusading monks at the time of the Tartar invasion in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, would head his troops with his uniform covered by his priestly vestments. He may be fighting now, or he may have been mustered in at last for the long twilight march.
But even the monks who have been trained in the paths of peace are not unfamiliar with war. They have it as an inspiring tradition, for all of these monasteries in the beginning were armed forts to repel the invasion of pirates. The Russian monastery, four hours by muleback from the capital, is the best example of this defensive style.
Mount Athos a Place of Thrills
"As you approach," tells a recent visitor, "you are impressed and bewildered by that strange fortress sanctuary, with its bristling array of bastions, towers, turrets, redans and parapets, all stained, riddled and crenellated by the action of time and tempest. As far as the eye can see there is no opening anywhere along the whole expanse of walls. Wooden galleries project beneath the roof, but they are of comparatively recent construction, having been added since the pirates ceased to harry the holy mountain. They are painted a defiant wood red. The whole mass of masonry clings acrobatic-like to a rock, which is covered with luxuriant verdure."
In this curious republic there are Russian monks and Greek monks and Servian monks and Bulgarian monks. Though peaceful in general effect, Mount Athos has been a place of thrills. Not long ago the Bulgarians made an effort to seize the Servian monastery Hilendar and annex it for their own monks. The matter caused intense indignation in Belgrade, and, was adjusted with some difficulty by the governing council of monks at Karyas.
For these men, rugged through long years of clean living and wholesome work, are of the stuff of ancient conquerors, despite the transforming spirit of the church. It would be interesting to know just how diffuse among them is the old crusading spirit as shown by the action of Father Bulatovitch, who believes he will be fighting for a holy cause.
Karyas an Eveless Eden
The Saloniki steamer puts into the small port of Daphne, but even though a woman landed there in disguise and was not discovered, she could not consider herself really in the forbidden precincts of the Eveless Eden. The envied objective is Karyas, the capital, on the eastern slope of the mountain, a gem of a settlement, almost hidden among gardens and olive yards, a scattered mosaic on a field of green. And yet in this garden there is no note of the appealing cadences of a woman's voice, no sound of childish laughter, not one touch that would tell of the presence of Eve.
That there may be no invasion, the army of fifty Albanian guards watch night and day. Women have endeavored by various ruses to enter, but invariably have been discovered and turned back. But who was the Byzantine empress to whom the chronicler refers who insisted upon the forbidden visit and who lived to regret it? You naturally settle upon Theodora, the wife of Justinian, who, having been at one time a performer in the circus and much given to adventure, is likely to have undertaken such an exploit simply because it was forbidden.
A story is told, also, of an American girl student in Greece who essayed it, and nearly succeeded, but for the cleverness of a monk who was endowed with some of the subtle craft of Sherlock Holmes. She went about to prepare for the adventure with painstaking deliberation. She practiced for days walking after the real masculine style, assisted by the young man who was to accompany her on the mission. She could smoke a cigarette like a man; but considering this as not being absolutely convincing, she mastered the cigar, and then, with a heroic effort, conquered the pipe.
American Girl's Exploit
Her voice was a deep contralto, and when she was at last ready for the adventure she was as perfect a young man as one would expect to see out for travel and instruction. The party landed at Daphne without the disguise being discovered.
On arriving at Karyas one reports to the prefect, who is in charge of the Albanian guard. One of these soldier monks watched the proceedings with keen interest. There was nothing in the manner of the disguised girl to excite suspicion — she was playing her part to perfection — but this fierce looking soldier cleric must have received some subtle intuition that the enemy was at hand.
Preferring to be absolutely certain, he said nothing while the routine was being gone through. But, as the party was about to go out into the single street of the capital he suddenly pointed to the floor and exclaimed in perfect English:
"Be careful, please!"
The girl instinctively made a motion, as though to gather up her skirt had she been wearing one. That motion discovered her. She was escorted back to the little seaport with less pomp than is due to an empress.
Wars may sweep the earth with fire and steel, and women bear the bitterest penalties of the loss, while they rise to the supremest heights of heroism and self-sacrifice — being angel to friend and foe alike; but there, at Mount Athos, she can have no part either in its peace or its peaceful wars. For she is the enemy, the insidious foe urged to invasion by the most powerful of feminine motives — curiosity.
Against her the army of the guard and the army of the isolated faithful are unceasingly on guard. And we, who are in the high fever of life, in the full consciousness of what misery, suffering and crime such an obvious thing as sex may encompass — who of us can say, with anything of verity, that these earnest men of Athos are not entirely and supremely happy in their Eveless Eden?
The Monastery of St. Peter
Where the white cowled peakhead of Mount Athos rises into the serene turquoise sky and looks down its slopes, solemnly verdured by dark forests and gardened by olive, myrtle and rose, is the most remarkable republic in all the world, into whose arcadian confines came, again the call of war — the world's greatest of wars.
This dominion, at all times on a military footing to repel its one great, human enemy, has passed through many wars with pirate invaders, not to mention the invasion of curiosity of the Byzantine empress, who insisted upon visiting the place to the mortification and scandal of the good men — so there is small wonder that Father Bulatovitch, once a grim soldier, volunteered to go forth and fight for the czar.
Mount Athos is on the peninsula of Saloniki, which territory Greece wrested from the Turks in the last war, says the Louisville Courier-Journal. There are twenty monasteries in the republic, eleven villages and 250 hermitages. The population is composed of more than three thousand monks and as many lay brothers, who are classed as "worldlings." There is an army of fifty Albanian guards stationed at the capital, Karyas, to see that no woman enters. And so rigid is the bar against the weaker sex that not even the female of any animal may be admitted.
In a Romantic Garden Spot
Think of this garden spot, where, despite the iron impress of celibacy, there are romance and poetry in the very air! There is mystery, too, for, looking from the sea, the cloak of the dense forest that lies over the titanic shoulders of the holy mount is full of blue and black shadow and silence; then, grimly medieval, clinging to the side of the elevation, even in the bright sunlight losing none of its impressive character, is the "mysterious monastery" of Simon Peter.
Mount Athos might have still drowsed in the serenity of its recent dream picture days had not Father Bulatovitch, who at one time held a commission in the army of the great white czar, been stirred by the martial spirit and declared his willingness go to war. He had been an officer of the guards and as abbot of a monastery brought something of the military discipline there.
He made it clear he did not intend giving up his religious orders, but, in imitation of the crusading monks at the time of the Tartar invasion in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, would head his troops with his uniform covered by his priestly vestments. He may be fighting now, or he may have been mustered in at last for the long twilight march.
But even the monks who have been trained in the paths of peace are not unfamiliar with war. They have it as an inspiring tradition, for all of these monasteries in the beginning were armed forts to repel the invasion of pirates. The Russian monastery, four hours by muleback from the capital, is the best example of this defensive style.
Mount Athos a Place of Thrills
"As you approach," tells a recent visitor, "you are impressed and bewildered by that strange fortress sanctuary, with its bristling array of bastions, towers, turrets, redans and parapets, all stained, riddled and crenellated by the action of time and tempest. As far as the eye can see there is no opening anywhere along the whole expanse of walls. Wooden galleries project beneath the roof, but they are of comparatively recent construction, having been added since the pirates ceased to harry the holy mountain. They are painted a defiant wood red. The whole mass of masonry clings acrobatic-like to a rock, which is covered with luxuriant verdure."
In this curious republic there are Russian monks and Greek monks and Servian monks and Bulgarian monks. Though peaceful in general effect, Mount Athos has been a place of thrills. Not long ago the Bulgarians made an effort to seize the Servian monastery Hilendar and annex it for their own monks. The matter caused intense indignation in Belgrade, and, was adjusted with some difficulty by the governing council of monks at Karyas.
For these men, rugged through long years of clean living and wholesome work, are of the stuff of ancient conquerors, despite the transforming spirit of the church. It would be interesting to know just how diffuse among them is the old crusading spirit as shown by the action of Father Bulatovitch, who believes he will be fighting for a holy cause.
Karyas an Eveless Eden
The Saloniki steamer puts into the small port of Daphne, but even though a woman landed there in disguise and was not discovered, she could not consider herself really in the forbidden precincts of the Eveless Eden. The envied objective is Karyas, the capital, on the eastern slope of the mountain, a gem of a settlement, almost hidden among gardens and olive yards, a scattered mosaic on a field of green. And yet in this garden there is no note of the appealing cadences of a woman's voice, no sound of childish laughter, not one touch that would tell of the presence of Eve.
That there may be no invasion, the army of fifty Albanian guards watch night and day. Women have endeavored by various ruses to enter, but invariably have been discovered and turned back. But who was the Byzantine empress to whom the chronicler refers who insisted upon the forbidden visit and who lived to regret it? You naturally settle upon Theodora, the wife of Justinian, who, having been at one time a performer in the circus and much given to adventure, is likely to have undertaken such an exploit simply because it was forbidden.
A story is told, also, of an American girl student in Greece who essayed it, and nearly succeeded, but for the cleverness of a monk who was endowed with some of the subtle craft of Sherlock Holmes. She went about to prepare for the adventure with painstaking deliberation. She practiced for days walking after the real masculine style, assisted by the young man who was to accompany her on the mission. She could smoke a cigarette like a man; but considering this as not being absolutely convincing, she mastered the cigar, and then, with a heroic effort, conquered the pipe.
American Girl's Exploit
Her voice was a deep contralto, and when she was at last ready for the adventure she was as perfect a young man as one would expect to see out for travel and instruction. The party landed at Daphne without the disguise being discovered.
On arriving at Karyas one reports to the prefect, who is in charge of the Albanian guard. One of these soldier monks watched the proceedings with keen interest. There was nothing in the manner of the disguised girl to excite suspicion — she was playing her part to perfection — but this fierce looking soldier cleric must have received some subtle intuition that the enemy was at hand.
Preferring to be absolutely certain, he said nothing while the routine was being gone through. But, as the party was about to go out into the single street of the capital he suddenly pointed to the floor and exclaimed in perfect English:
"Be careful, please!"
The girl instinctively made a motion, as though to gather up her skirt had she been wearing one. That motion discovered her. She was escorted back to the little seaport with less pomp than is due to an empress.
Wars may sweep the earth with fire and steel, and women bear the bitterest penalties of the loss, while they rise to the supremest heights of heroism and self-sacrifice — being angel to friend and foe alike; but there, at Mount Athos, she can have no part either in its peace or its peaceful wars. For she is the enemy, the insidious foe urged to invasion by the most powerful of feminine motives — curiosity.
Against her the army of the guard and the army of the isolated faithful are unceasingly on guard. And we, who are in the high fever of life, in the full consciousness of what misery, suffering and crime such an obvious thing as sex may encompass — who of us can say, with anything of verity, that these earnest men of Athos are not entirely and supremely happy in their Eveless Eden?
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Rewards of Friendship Told
California, 1922
The rewards of friendship, both in business and in service to others, formed the theme for a sermon to young men, delivered last night by Rev. E. A. Fridell, assistant pastor, in the First Baptist church. His subject was "A Young Man's Friends." Young men of the community were guests of honor.
"The rewards of friendship are bestowed upon those who walk the path of Christian service," Rev. Fridell said. "Willingness to give life, if necessary, constitutes the test of friendship. Jesus gave the clew to the meaning of life when He said, 'Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.'
"No man is too poor to have latent capacities for sympathy and helpfulness; they spur us to greater achievements. Friendships that abide find their strength in the life of the Man of Galilee.
"From among the great crowd that rallied around Jesus, apparently sharing His enthusiasm and having faith in His ideals, only a handful met squarely the challenge to intimate friendship. So today few people learn to know the value of friends. No person lives an abundant life without a friend. To have a friend one must be forgetful of self. Jesus pointed out the way when a follower betrayed Him and He turned to the remaining handful of loyal folks with the words: 'For their sakes I consecrate myself.' The secret the man with friends will be found in those words, 'for their sakes.'"
—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Aug. 21, 1922, p. 8.
The rewards of friendship, both in business and in service to others, formed the theme for a sermon to young men, delivered last night by Rev. E. A. Fridell, assistant pastor, in the First Baptist church. His subject was "A Young Man's Friends." Young men of the community were guests of honor.
"The rewards of friendship are bestowed upon those who walk the path of Christian service," Rev. Fridell said. "Willingness to give life, if necessary, constitutes the test of friendship. Jesus gave the clew to the meaning of life when He said, 'Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.'
"No man is too poor to have latent capacities for sympathy and helpfulness; they spur us to greater achievements. Friendships that abide find their strength in the life of the Man of Galilee.
"From among the great crowd that rallied around Jesus, apparently sharing His enthusiasm and having faith in His ideals, only a handful met squarely the challenge to intimate friendship. So today few people learn to know the value of friends. No person lives an abundant life without a friend. To have a friend one must be forgetful of self. Jesus pointed out the way when a follower betrayed Him and He turned to the remaining handful of loyal folks with the words: 'For their sakes I consecrate myself.' The secret the man with friends will be found in those words, 'for their sakes.'"
—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Aug. 21, 1922, p. 8.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Adam Was Rib, Woman Says
1914
Mrs. Gilman Asserts at Feminist Gathering Eve Came First In Garden of Eden
New York, Feb. 20 — Adam, not Eve, was the rib. That is, instead of woman springing from the rib of man it happened the other way — man was fashioned from the rib of woman, who came first in the Garden of Eden. So declared Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a leader of the feminist movement.
Elaborating on her address delivered before 100 women, Mrs. Gilman brought out these tenets of her belief:
First, the highest form of life is the female of the species — any species. Woman has progressed, while man has failed to develop physiologically speaking.
Woman's sphere is motherhood and the growth of the race, while man is but a hunter and fighter. Only as she serves man in motherhood is woman considered useful and protected.
Mrs. Gilman Asserts at Feminist Gathering Eve Came First In Garden of Eden
New York, Feb. 20 — Adam, not Eve, was the rib. That is, instead of woman springing from the rib of man it happened the other way — man was fashioned from the rib of woman, who came first in the Garden of Eden. So declared Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a leader of the feminist movement.
Elaborating on her address delivered before 100 women, Mrs. Gilman brought out these tenets of her belief:
First, the highest form of life is the female of the species — any species. Woman has progressed, while man has failed to develop physiologically speaking.
Woman's sphere is motherhood and the growth of the race, while man is but a hunter and fighter. Only as she serves man in motherhood is woman considered useful and protected.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Priest Says Tango is Doing God's Will
1914
St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 7. — Girls who whirl in the dizzy tango and kick up their heels and exhibit their ankles are doing the will of God, according to the Rev. D. S. Phelan, editor of the Western Watchman. The reverend editor is pastor of a Roman Catholic church here.
The will of God, he says, is that the girls shall get married and bear children and to do that they must exhibit themselves in such wise as to attract the attention of the sterner sex. He rails at the army of "crusty bishops and crabbed priests," reinforced by a lot of rheumatic dancing masters, who are opposing the tango.
In a tango editorial in the current issue of the Western Watchman Father Phelan says in part: "Don't mind, girls. These crusty old priests are only retouching the awful anathemas they formerly launched against the round dance so much in vogue now among our sodalities.
"People do not understand the innocent female mind. These tango dancing girls are engaged in God's work. The bewitching little miss who disports her charms in the ballroom is doing God's work as emphatically as the bishop in his orisons. But, girls, permit us to tell you that the man who falls in love with your pretty face is apt to become a better husband than one who is captured by your ankles. But, face or ankles, you have a right to fascinate him if you can."
St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 7. — Girls who whirl in the dizzy tango and kick up their heels and exhibit their ankles are doing the will of God, according to the Rev. D. S. Phelan, editor of the Western Watchman. The reverend editor is pastor of a Roman Catholic church here.
The will of God, he says, is that the girls shall get married and bear children and to do that they must exhibit themselves in such wise as to attract the attention of the sterner sex. He rails at the army of "crusty bishops and crabbed priests," reinforced by a lot of rheumatic dancing masters, who are opposing the tango.
In a tango editorial in the current issue of the Western Watchman Father Phelan says in part: "Don't mind, girls. These crusty old priests are only retouching the awful anathemas they formerly launched against the round dance so much in vogue now among our sodalities.
"People do not understand the innocent female mind. These tango dancing girls are engaged in God's work. The bewitching little miss who disports her charms in the ballroom is doing God's work as emphatically as the bishop in his orisons. But, girls, permit us to tell you that the man who falls in love with your pretty face is apt to become a better husband than one who is captured by your ankles. But, face or ankles, you have a right to fascinate him if you can."
Monday, May 14, 2007
Do Eminent Men Believe in Christianity?
1899
Two young men sat disputing one evening last June on the steps of their college dormitory. They were seniors, on the eve of graduation, and both were filled with the importance of their own views.
"I, for one," said the younger, "have no use for Christianity. It might do for savages, or even for the better class of Filipinos. If you believe in the trolley-car, you have outlived the tenets of Christ. Modern science has gone beyond them."
His companion, the son of a clergyman, had almost lost his father's faith during his college career; yet he was not absolutely convinced of its worthlessness. "A few great men still believe in Christ," he ventured, mildly: "His teachings have been the foundation of modern civilization."
"Pooh!" sneered the younger man. "Buddha paved the way for Christ, and Christ has built the foundation for a higher creed. I tell you, the men of the best intelligence in this country don't believe in Christianity."
Is this a true statement? At any rate, it is not a new one, and it demands to be answered with facts, which are the most effective arguments. The Christian Herald recently addressed letters to the leading men of the nation, asking them if they were believers in Christ. Senators, ambassadors, sailors, soldiers and business men, eminent in their respective stations, have responded. The following were some of the first to reply:
President McKinley wrote, "My belief embraces the divinity of Christ and a recognition of Christianity as the mightiest factor in the world's civilization."
Six cabinet ministers affirmed that they were firm believers in the transcendent value of Christianity. Three justices of the United States Supreme Court announced their belief in the Christian faith, Chief Justice Fuller being among the number. Every naval officer who was interrogated responded affirmatively. Admiral Sampson said, "I claim to be a friend of Christianity. I was thus brought up and thus taught to believe. I have never had occasion to change my belief." In fact, all the heroes of Santiago and Manila acknowledge allegiance to Christianity.
The army makes a remarkable showing. Miles, Shafter, Brooke, Flagler, Corbin, Sternberg, Breckinridge, Howard, and a host of other high officers explicitly declare their faith. The chief of engineers writes, "I fully believe in the divinity of the Saviour and the surpassing potency of Christianity."
The majority of the United States Senate uphold Christianity. The same may be said of the House. Senator Tillman of South Carolina thinks "he would be a fool who should deny the beneficent influence of the Christian religion." Senator Jones of Arkansas says, "I am a firm believer in the Christian religion, in the immortality of the soul and in the beneficence and wisdom of an all-wise God, and but for this belief this life, in my opinion, would not be worth living."
Marshall Field of Chicago and Mr. Wanamaker of Philadelphia are typical of the leading business men who believe in God. Nearly every university and college president is a representative for Christianity. The Chinese minister and the Russian ambassador recognize the "potency of the Christian religion as a civilizing influence." When all the answers are in, it is thought that ninety-nine hundredths of those who represent the highest intelligence and success in this country will have declared their professed belief in Christ and in the principles taught by Him.
Such testimony ought not to be overlooked by the young men who think it a sign of cleverness to boast of unbelief. It is rather the sign of a mental condition less acceptable to conceit. Science today, in common with the eminent men whose names have been given, accepts as the strongest force in the moral development of the race, the influence of the marvelous life by which the fatherhood of God has been declared to men. Here science is not agnostic. In its own deliberate way it accepts the facts of Christianity, and acknowledges its renovating power and its domination in modern civilization. — Youth's Companion.
Two young men sat disputing one evening last June on the steps of their college dormitory. They were seniors, on the eve of graduation, and both were filled with the importance of their own views.
"I, for one," said the younger, "have no use for Christianity. It might do for savages, or even for the better class of Filipinos. If you believe in the trolley-car, you have outlived the tenets of Christ. Modern science has gone beyond them."
His companion, the son of a clergyman, had almost lost his father's faith during his college career; yet he was not absolutely convinced of its worthlessness. "A few great men still believe in Christ," he ventured, mildly: "His teachings have been the foundation of modern civilization."
"Pooh!" sneered the younger man. "Buddha paved the way for Christ, and Christ has built the foundation for a higher creed. I tell you, the men of the best intelligence in this country don't believe in Christianity."
Is this a true statement? At any rate, it is not a new one, and it demands to be answered with facts, which are the most effective arguments. The Christian Herald recently addressed letters to the leading men of the nation, asking them if they were believers in Christ. Senators, ambassadors, sailors, soldiers and business men, eminent in their respective stations, have responded. The following were some of the first to reply:
President McKinley wrote, "My belief embraces the divinity of Christ and a recognition of Christianity as the mightiest factor in the world's civilization."
Six cabinet ministers affirmed that they were firm believers in the transcendent value of Christianity. Three justices of the United States Supreme Court announced their belief in the Christian faith, Chief Justice Fuller being among the number. Every naval officer who was interrogated responded affirmatively. Admiral Sampson said, "I claim to be a friend of Christianity. I was thus brought up and thus taught to believe. I have never had occasion to change my belief." In fact, all the heroes of Santiago and Manila acknowledge allegiance to Christianity.
The army makes a remarkable showing. Miles, Shafter, Brooke, Flagler, Corbin, Sternberg, Breckinridge, Howard, and a host of other high officers explicitly declare their faith. The chief of engineers writes, "I fully believe in the divinity of the Saviour and the surpassing potency of Christianity."
The majority of the United States Senate uphold Christianity. The same may be said of the House. Senator Tillman of South Carolina thinks "he would be a fool who should deny the beneficent influence of the Christian religion." Senator Jones of Arkansas says, "I am a firm believer in the Christian religion, in the immortality of the soul and in the beneficence and wisdom of an all-wise God, and but for this belief this life, in my opinion, would not be worth living."
Marshall Field of Chicago and Mr. Wanamaker of Philadelphia are typical of the leading business men who believe in God. Nearly every university and college president is a representative for Christianity. The Chinese minister and the Russian ambassador recognize the "potency of the Christian religion as a civilizing influence." When all the answers are in, it is thought that ninety-nine hundredths of those who represent the highest intelligence and success in this country will have declared their professed belief in Christ and in the principles taught by Him.
Such testimony ought not to be overlooked by the young men who think it a sign of cleverness to boast of unbelief. It is rather the sign of a mental condition less acceptable to conceit. Science today, in common with the eminent men whose names have been given, accepts as the strongest force in the moral development of the race, the influence of the marvelous life by which the fatherhood of God has been declared to men. Here science is not agnostic. In its own deliberate way it accepts the facts of Christianity, and acknowledges its renovating power and its domination in modern civilization. — Youth's Companion.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Sex and Sin — Gender Differences and Morality
1902
Sex and Sin
An Interesting Discussion of an Old, Old Subject
"The woman thou gavest to be with me tempted me and I did eat." Such was the plea of Adam — and Adam has always been regarded by civilized people as a bit of a sneak for thus attempting to shift the burden of responsibility upon the sex which the highest development of chivalry demands that the male should protect. Bishop Spaldlng of Peoria is hardly to be classed with Adam when he characterizes the women of America as the source of three-quarters of the crime committed in this country, for he has no personal motive in making the accusation. He seems to be animated, rather, by a broad spirit of philosophical inquiry.
His impressions are evidently gained largely from the confessional and from the intimate observation of the details of family and social life permitted to a priest of his church. Physicians who, in a way, often serve as father confessors to the unfortunate, draw facts from their own experience which would lead to a similar conclusion. But in saying that women are the source of a large percentage of the crime we would not understand either the priest or the physician as saying that the women were culpably so. Eve may have had no intention of tempting Adam to sin. Manlike, he may have followed the lure of her beauty and her charm on his own responsibility, and resolved to tread the path of disobedience in her company, though it led to death.
The philosophic statement of the broad truth would be that the sex motive is at the bottom of seventy-five per cent of the crime in the world. Next to alimentiveness, amativeness is the strongest instinct in human nature. The race first seeks the means of continuing the individual existence, and next the means of continuing the species. Woman is at once the tempted and the temptress. The lawless passions of man wreak themselves on her, and she in her weakness protects herself with subtlety, oftentimes with deception. The consequences of common sin are more fearful to her than to the man, and she is taught from her childhood to protect her virtue at the sacrifice, if necessary, of other noble qualities — or that failing to do so she is utterly lost. Hence the reckless abandon of impure women. The boy, on the other hand, is taught that truth, courage, honor are of more importance than bodily purity. As society is largely constituted, the man violates the law of purity lightly, but holds to his other standards of honor, while the woman who shares his sin is dragged to utter degradation. The man perhaps recovers his balance; finds his standing in society not impaired, and leads a useful and honorable life, as worldly honors go. Thus the contrast between the two classes of sinners becomes accentuated to the disadvantage of the woman and the advantage of the man.
The scientist Lombroso accounts woman the immoral sex, because she has not the same standards of truth and honor and courage that men have. If she has not, it is the fault of her education and not of nature. Under existing standards she has not a fair chance in the world. But in spite of this a large percentage of the sex rise to moral heights of which men are incapable. Bishop Spalding's arraignment at first blush excites indignation; but when properly construed it is in reality more an arraignment of men and the false standards of education and morality, than of women as women. The fair sex may be the source of crime, through their attraction and fascination, without being themselves the responsible sinners. If the reader will keep this fact in view he (or she) will he able to appreciate the force of the bishop's observation without mentally accusing him of either false diagnosis or intentional slander. — Minneapolis Tribune.
—The Daily Northwestern, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, June 11, 1902, p. 3.
Sex and Sin
An Interesting Discussion of an Old, Old Subject
"The woman thou gavest to be with me tempted me and I did eat." Such was the plea of Adam — and Adam has always been regarded by civilized people as a bit of a sneak for thus attempting to shift the burden of responsibility upon the sex which the highest development of chivalry demands that the male should protect. Bishop Spaldlng of Peoria is hardly to be classed with Adam when he characterizes the women of America as the source of three-quarters of the crime committed in this country, for he has no personal motive in making the accusation. He seems to be animated, rather, by a broad spirit of philosophical inquiry.
His impressions are evidently gained largely from the confessional and from the intimate observation of the details of family and social life permitted to a priest of his church. Physicians who, in a way, often serve as father confessors to the unfortunate, draw facts from their own experience which would lead to a similar conclusion. But in saying that women are the source of a large percentage of the crime we would not understand either the priest or the physician as saying that the women were culpably so. Eve may have had no intention of tempting Adam to sin. Manlike, he may have followed the lure of her beauty and her charm on his own responsibility, and resolved to tread the path of disobedience in her company, though it led to death.
The philosophic statement of the broad truth would be that the sex motive is at the bottom of seventy-five per cent of the crime in the world. Next to alimentiveness, amativeness is the strongest instinct in human nature. The race first seeks the means of continuing the individual existence, and next the means of continuing the species. Woman is at once the tempted and the temptress. The lawless passions of man wreak themselves on her, and she in her weakness protects herself with subtlety, oftentimes with deception. The consequences of common sin are more fearful to her than to the man, and she is taught from her childhood to protect her virtue at the sacrifice, if necessary, of other noble qualities — or that failing to do so she is utterly lost. Hence the reckless abandon of impure women. The boy, on the other hand, is taught that truth, courage, honor are of more importance than bodily purity. As society is largely constituted, the man violates the law of purity lightly, but holds to his other standards of honor, while the woman who shares his sin is dragged to utter degradation. The man perhaps recovers his balance; finds his standing in society not impaired, and leads a useful and honorable life, as worldly honors go. Thus the contrast between the two classes of sinners becomes accentuated to the disadvantage of the woman and the advantage of the man.
The scientist Lombroso accounts woman the immoral sex, because she has not the same standards of truth and honor and courage that men have. If she has not, it is the fault of her education and not of nature. Under existing standards she has not a fair chance in the world. But in spite of this a large percentage of the sex rise to moral heights of which men are incapable. Bishop Spalding's arraignment at first blush excites indignation; but when properly construed it is in reality more an arraignment of men and the false standards of education and morality, than of women as women. The fair sex may be the source of crime, through their attraction and fascination, without being themselves the responsible sinners. If the reader will keep this fact in view he (or she) will he able to appreciate the force of the bishop's observation without mentally accusing him of either false diagnosis or intentional slander. — Minneapolis Tribune.
—The Daily Northwestern, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, June 11, 1902, p. 3.
Pastor Has Pretty Girls for Ushers: Attendance, Giving Up
1897
Girls Fill The Church
Pretty Ushers Prove a Paying Move at Trenton, N.J.
Rev. Maurice Penfield Fikes, of the First Baptist church, Trenton, N. J., has astonished religious circles by introducing in his church a novel feature in the form of girl ushers, whose business it is to take up the collections as well as to show church attendants to seats.
Mr. Fikes advertised the fact that there would be girl ushers in the church, and it was incidentally announced that in selecting care would be taken to pick out half a dozen, of the prettiest maidens in the congregation. The announcement was sufficient to draw to the church recently such an attendance of young men as was never there before.
Every seat in the church was filled long before services were begun, and it was necessary to set chairs in the aisles to accommodate the crowd. As ushers the girls were a grand success, but their best service was given when the time came to take up the collection. Pastor Fikes, prior to the time for starting the girls out with the contribution boxes, announced that the Lord loves a cheerful giver and said that he who gave to a church invested his money in an institution that was better than a savings bank. "Give freely and cheerfully," said he, "and the Lord, as well as these good girls, will appreciate it." The contribution was the largest ever taken in the church.
—Dubuque Daily Herald, Dubuque, IA, Dec. 4, 1897, p. 7.
Girls Fill The Church
Pretty Ushers Prove a Paying Move at Trenton, N.J.
Rev. Maurice Penfield Fikes, of the First Baptist church, Trenton, N. J., has astonished religious circles by introducing in his church a novel feature in the form of girl ushers, whose business it is to take up the collections as well as to show church attendants to seats.
Mr. Fikes advertised the fact that there would be girl ushers in the church, and it was incidentally announced that in selecting care would be taken to pick out half a dozen, of the prettiest maidens in the congregation. The announcement was sufficient to draw to the church recently such an attendance of young men as was never there before.
Every seat in the church was filled long before services were begun, and it was necessary to set chairs in the aisles to accommodate the crowd. As ushers the girls were a grand success, but their best service was given when the time came to take up the collection. Pastor Fikes, prior to the time for starting the girls out with the contribution boxes, announced that the Lord loves a cheerful giver and said that he who gave to a church invested his money in an institution that was better than a savings bank. "Give freely and cheerfully," said he, "and the Lord, as well as these good girls, will appreciate it." The contribution was the largest ever taken in the church.
—Dubuque Daily Herald, Dubuque, IA, Dec. 4, 1897, p. 7.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
The Gods are Hungry — A Reason For War
1874
Never did war, among either savage or civilized peoples, assume so sinister an aspect, as when it was carried on under the guise of religion, to furnish those human banquets which some peoples have thought it necessary to lay before their gods.
That "the gods were hungry," was the cause of wars among many ancient races, but notably so among the Mexicans. The object of wars among the Aztecs was far less territorial or personal aggrandizement, than the procuring of human victims to place before their deities.
More than two thousand of such victims, upon a moderate estimate, were annually sacrificed in the Mexican temples, and in some years more than a hundred thousand human beings are believed to have perished in this manner.
They also had a yearly sacrifice to one of their idols, in which the victim was a beautiful youth, who was worshiped as a god for a whole year before he was killed. — Scribner's Magazine.
Seraphinnis is a Russian monk who latterly founded a society to which women were admitted on condition that they cut off their hair. The beautiful appropriateness of this will be perceived when it is stated that his brother was an enterprising hair-dresser.
What wine is both food and drink? Port wine with a crust.
Never did war, among either savage or civilized peoples, assume so sinister an aspect, as when it was carried on under the guise of religion, to furnish those human banquets which some peoples have thought it necessary to lay before their gods.
That "the gods were hungry," was the cause of wars among many ancient races, but notably so among the Mexicans. The object of wars among the Aztecs was far less territorial or personal aggrandizement, than the procuring of human victims to place before their deities.
More than two thousand of such victims, upon a moderate estimate, were annually sacrificed in the Mexican temples, and in some years more than a hundred thousand human beings are believed to have perished in this manner.
They also had a yearly sacrifice to one of their idols, in which the victim was a beautiful youth, who was worshiped as a god for a whole year before he was killed. — Scribner's Magazine.
Seraphinnis is a Russian monk who latterly founded a society to which women were admitted on condition that they cut off their hair. The beautiful appropriateness of this will be perceived when it is stated that his brother was an enterprising hair-dresser.
What wine is both food and drink? Port wine with a crust.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Billy Sunday Lashes Syracuse Women in Tabernacle
Syracuse, New York, 1915
BILLY SUNDAY LASHES WOMEN IN TABERNACLE
BUT HE TELLS SYRACUSE MEN ARE MUCH WORSE THAN WOMANKIND
"YOU WOMEN CAN MAKE HOME A HELL OR HEAVEN," SAYS EVANGELIST
SYRACUSE, N. Y., Nov. 12. — Syracuse is smarting today under the vigorous lashing for card playing, beer drinking and unGodliness administered by Rev. "Billy" Sunday, who is holding revival meetings here.
"Broken homes and broken lives seem to go hand in hand. They are inseparably connected," shouted Sunday, in an excoriation of vice.
"Many sons and daughters are brought up in idleness. The women are silly, frivolous, extravagant. They allow themselves to be flattered, cajoled and bamboozled by a lot of jilted jays with cracked characters.
"You women can make a hell of a home or a heaven of a home.
MOTHERS NEGLECT HOMES
"I tell you what's the matter with you mothers: You are neglecting your home for the lodge, for your clubs, for your literaries and your societies.
"I don't want to advocate that you should lick your children all the time, but when it's needed. There are homes in which the switch should hang on the wall and underneath it the motto: 'I Need Thee Every Hour.'
"I believe that if the motherhood of this country were no better than the manhood, God would dump the whole thing in hell.
"You'll never save Syracuse from intemperance if you run a booze joint in your home and keep beer and wine in your cellar.
"You can put a library on every corner and let every church member be a college graduate, but that will never save you from hell.
SCRUB THE HOBO — BAH!
"You can have your clubs, your literary societies and your Keeley cures; you can go into the red light districts and have a girl add a few ruffles to her dress to lengthen it; you can scrub the hobo, but that will never save anyone.
"Do you suppose that God wants to work with a hand that is lifting a beer glass one minute and a deck of cards or a novel the next?
"If a church member plays cards he ought to be expelled from church.
"Many a life knows no song. They seem to say: Where is the joy that once I knew when first I loved the Lord?
"It's back where you left it — back there where you sidestepped your virtue and winked at another woman.
"I have known boys who made a success of life who had an old materialistic, irreligious father, but I never knew of anyone to succeed who had a Godless, card playing mother.
"When Napoleon Bonaparte was asked, 'What do you regard as the greatest need of France?' he replied, 'Mothers, mothers, mothers.'
LAUDS TRUE MOTHERS
"I believe that the greatest work done in this world is done by true mothers. The last thing the devil robs a boy of is what he learned at mother's knee."
"Once when my wife was ill, the doctor said she should have some beer. I ordered a case, then thought better of it and said:
"'Wife, I'll see you in your coffin before I'll give you beer.'
"I think the doctor was a liar, and the doctor who prescribes beer is nothing but a jackass."
—The Lima Daily News, Lima, Ohio, November 12, 1915, page 9.
BILLY SUNDAY LASHES WOMEN IN TABERNACLE
BUT HE TELLS SYRACUSE MEN ARE MUCH WORSE THAN WOMANKIND
"YOU WOMEN CAN MAKE HOME A HELL OR HEAVEN," SAYS EVANGELIST
SYRACUSE, N. Y., Nov. 12. — Syracuse is smarting today under the vigorous lashing for card playing, beer drinking and unGodliness administered by Rev. "Billy" Sunday, who is holding revival meetings here.
"Broken homes and broken lives seem to go hand in hand. They are inseparably connected," shouted Sunday, in an excoriation of vice.
"Many sons and daughters are brought up in idleness. The women are silly, frivolous, extravagant. They allow themselves to be flattered, cajoled and bamboozled by a lot of jilted jays with cracked characters.
"You women can make a hell of a home or a heaven of a home.
MOTHERS NEGLECT HOMES
"I tell you what's the matter with you mothers: You are neglecting your home for the lodge, for your clubs, for your literaries and your societies.
"I don't want to advocate that you should lick your children all the time, but when it's needed. There are homes in which the switch should hang on the wall and underneath it the motto: 'I Need Thee Every Hour.'
"I believe that if the motherhood of this country were no better than the manhood, God would dump the whole thing in hell.
"You'll never save Syracuse from intemperance if you run a booze joint in your home and keep beer and wine in your cellar.
"You can put a library on every corner and let every church member be a college graduate, but that will never save you from hell.
SCRUB THE HOBO — BAH!
"You can have your clubs, your literary societies and your Keeley cures; you can go into the red light districts and have a girl add a few ruffles to her dress to lengthen it; you can scrub the hobo, but that will never save anyone.
"Do you suppose that God wants to work with a hand that is lifting a beer glass one minute and a deck of cards or a novel the next?
"If a church member plays cards he ought to be expelled from church.
"Many a life knows no song. They seem to say: Where is the joy that once I knew when first I loved the Lord?
"It's back where you left it — back there where you sidestepped your virtue and winked at another woman.
"I have known boys who made a success of life who had an old materialistic, irreligious father, but I never knew of anyone to succeed who had a Godless, card playing mother.
"When Napoleon Bonaparte was asked, 'What do you regard as the greatest need of France?' he replied, 'Mothers, mothers, mothers.'
LAUDS TRUE MOTHERS
"I believe that the greatest work done in this world is done by true mothers. The last thing the devil robs a boy of is what he learned at mother's knee."
"Once when my wife was ill, the doctor said she should have some beer. I ordered a case, then thought better of it and said:
"'Wife, I'll see you in your coffin before I'll give you beer.'
"I think the doctor was a liar, and the doctor who prescribes beer is nothing but a jackass."
—The Lima Daily News, Lima, Ohio, November 12, 1915, page 9.
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