Newspapers / Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.) / Jan. 15, 1925, edition 1 / Page 1
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WHY GO TO CHURCH? Dear to my heart are thy tab ernacles My heart longeth, yea! even fainteth for the courts of the Lord.—Psalm 84. The writer of this Psalm was shedding no new year vices and making no new year resolutions. He loved the Church of God and found a joy in its worship. The year 1924 had many dis cussions of the Church. It car ried a symposium on why men go to church and why they do not; why they are members and why they are religious mug wumps. The sum total of the discussion was no great contri bution to the world’s wisdom. But the debate was worth the energy expended in going through it. It is always in or der to ask why men do not hold membership in the churches, why they are good members or poor, or why they are not mem bers at all. The church has had its way much in public affairs; but it must make and hold its place. ivnuwo wny uaviu went to church. He tells the World and it knew before he told it. But it is not easy to account for the attendance of so many others. Some of us go because it is a duty, very many of us have that urge alone. And we pride ourselves on doing a dis agreeable duty. Church-going is the price that we pay for our salvation and considering the amount of salvation that we be lieve in, lots of us get cheated. Others of us regard it a weekly penance which we en dure for the sake of absolu tion. If we are a little more in telligent we see in the church a valuable institution and we go to sustain it. But we are sorry when service hour comes and ha$)&yfwhen it -is overr just as We areSore when taxing time for 'the government comes round or payments on our church pledges are due. There are others amongst us who, find the church pleasant socially. The church is beautiful and appeals to our sense of the aesthetic. The pews are comfor table; the dim religious light is agreeable to our eyes dazzled by the'glare outside; the quiet is a relief to our aching heads and racking nerves; the music is soothing, the society congenial. It is a good gathering place for friends before and after ser vice. Before rural life Was de stroyed by paved roads and Fords, the church was a fine place for discussion of crops and politics and the Lord’s Day the best social occasion of the week. Many of the intelligentsia go tjb the church for intellectual enjoyment. In New York there is Dr. Cadman’s church, Dr. Jef ferson’s church, Harry Emerson Fosdick’s church, or in the old days it was Henry Ward Beech er’S, Lyman Abbott’s, Spur geon’s or Talmage’s church. 1 Rounders make up much of these congregations, people‘who do not wish to be bored by the preliminaries of the average Protestant or by the “reading of the minutes” in the Episcopal church. They care nothing for the service and if they can get good free seats and the preach er is a good entertainer, they enjoy the preaching hour, pro vided it is only half an hour. Make it snappy in their reli gion. To the duty-goer, the club goer, the lecture-goer, vaude ville-goer, the Eighty-fourth Psalm means nothing. They are spiritual wrecks who may be worth the salvage, but they are hard to save. ,The author of this Psalm went to church for very different reasons. He went there to find God- He believed that God was everywhere but somehow found Him very present in the church. Singer David looked into the church, for the God of hope when the singer was discouraged; for the God of all comfort when in sorrow; for the God of for giveness when sin overwhelmed; for. the God of peace when • life was most tumultuous. And the poet church-goer missed Him when the , courts of the Lord < were far away. He did not go to see. the beauty of the edifice, to hear artists sing, to admire pul pit eloquence. He went because the courts of the Lord were cheering to him, because his heart found joy in the taberna cles of the Lor/3. Oh, yes, you say, is not God everywhere? Is not all ground holy ground, are not all moun tains God's, are there places more holy than others? That isn’t the question to ask. Is there not everything in associ ation, is there any such place as home, does any city water supply compare with the old spring and the gourd of your youth? Almost any house will shelter you as well as your own, any hotel will furnish better living quarters, but the hotel dweller knows nothing of the home joys. And an ecclesiasti cal rounder who knows no church, but moves from church to church, has lost and can not acquire again the love for the tabernacles and courts of the Lord. .But more tnan association is sympathy,. The church is made sacred by men and women who worship in it. The church is a reservoir of spiritual life. Fel lowship more $han association makes the church. It may be a Roman Catholic cathedral with its High Mass; an Episcopal church with its cathedral ser vice, a Friend’s meeting house with only its solemn silence; a Salvation Army hall with its drum, its fife and its Moody and Sankey jazz. You will find in those places hundreds who are really worshippers. You find yourself going with them though their symbols mean nothing to you. The church is a good place. In it will be found those who most earnestly are seeking the jonsdous presence of - God. And those who are bent on such a search are not driven there by sense of duty, attracted by con genial society, by beauty of ar chitecture, or eloquence of the preacher. And he who finds God in the church will sing with David this song of Zion in a home land.—The Greensboro News. ' AND MARTHA SAYS Women are increasingly in terested in world affairs, and their desires and efforts center especially on World Peace. That is natural. Men don’t care enough, and children don’t ■enow enough, about the cost and the value of human life. Women want World Peace, and :hey will be a great factor in its achievement. But it will not ae won in a day—perhaps not in a generation. We must pray and hope and work for this great blessing. Meanwhile, there is a bit of peace work that every woman can begin today, and from which she can get immediate re sults. She can get the peace of aod in her own heart and soul, and she can radiate it like sun shine over the lives of her loved anes. She can stop worrying aver foolish vanities, trifles, non assentials. She can stop trying to <eep up with the Jones’s. She can stop harassing her husband and nagging her children. There is something wrong with a woman if her husband and children do not call out as soon as they open the front door, ‘Oh, M-o-t-h-e-r!” Women long for beauty of face and voice. A serene and ovely spirit is better than a fa cial surgeon for that ugly line between the brows; and a lov ing heart is the greatest vocal teacher in the world. We women are half of the luman race. If we will make svery unit of our half, a calm ng, healing,- soothing influence, ive will soon have men so lamb ike, that they cannot even think var, much less make it. Let us make our personal peace treaty with the Great Power; let’s scrap our words that wound and looks that slay; let's dismiss our standing army )f complaintslet's pour so much love into humanity that there will be no room left for hate.— fhe Christian Statesman.. “MEMORABILIA” Following is a part of a re view of the leading events 9f. the past year, abroad and at; home, read by Bishop Edward Rondthaler, of the Southern Mo ravian Church, at the “watch night ” service, December 31, in the Moravian church at Win* ston-Salem: v ; i Introduction: What good is there in listen ing to or reading a year's Me morabilia? Its greatest value, is that it gives to a thoughtful mind a whole impression of world conditions both at home; and abroad., We can therefore at the close of a year the better perceive what the evils are against which we must strug gle and what the opportunities are for good which we can to gether follow. Thus in our own little individual part' we can best serve our God and do our social duty in bringing in the complet ed kingdom of our Lord Jesusj Christ. It is only a little place which each one of us can fill but if we d^ it faithfully, our God will not lorget it. world uonaitions., We begin our survey of world conditions with the far east; with that gifted, proud, energet ic and prolific country, the em pire of Japan. We are sorry to have to state that Japan is in a very restless and angry state of mind and especially so against its friend, the United States. The trouble has arisen through the manner in which the immi gration laws were passed by the last Congress. Japan did not object to limitation of its very small immigration into this country and even to, the entire cessation of immigration of , Japanese to the United' States in the course of, the jiext few., years, but it is sore andiresiem ful over the manner in which America has in its new law stamped the Japanese as an in ferior race. It will take all the patient effort of the Chistians in both lands to overcome the mis chief which our Congress has thus done to the injury both of business and of Christian, influ ence in that great country. We look for a morfient at China. To judge from newspa per reports China is in a State of great turmoil and of bloody war. The fact Of the case seems to be that a few ambitious gen erals are exercising their ar mies against each other in widely scattered parts of the great empire, but underneath this apparent turmoil the Chinese appear to be living in patient industry as always. We glance at India. It is a vast country of three hundred millions of people^ iTie pacifists reformer, Ghandi, has exercised a strange influence over this country during the past' few years, but the commotions are ceasing and the beneficent pow er of England in maintaining the peace or a country where re ligions are bitterly hostile to each other, still continues. ' '5 As We pass farther westward we strike at the great and rest-, less current of Mohammedan thought and1 life. From China and India iri the east all the way westward to where the At lantic washes the shores' of the African coast the Mohammedan religious ambition of two hun dred and thirty millions of peo ple, is now alert and excited over the apparent downfall of their political power in the wrold. Their caliphat has fallen, their holy city of Mecca has1, be-; come the prey of contending factions, their leading state which is Turkey is now limited to a little rural country in wes tern Asia and its two great sea ports, Constantinople , and Smyr na, lie in decay and neglect. In Palestine they are making a stand against the Jewish inva sion of their land, in Egypt fhe vast current Of student thought at the great Moahmmedah uni versities is lashing itself. in vain against firm English rule. Everywhere the Mohammedans feel that outwardly speaking they are a beaten people. Under this sense, of humiliation much violence and murder have taken place but at the same time there is great hope for a wider intro ction of Christianity amongst ese children of Ishmael, for horn their father Abraham yed, “O, that Ishmael might e before Thee.” It is a great isis for Christianity in its re ons with a whole vast Mo mmedan world. q * * * The acceptance of what is led the “Dawes plan” for the ancial regeneration of central rope is already showing its d effects both in' Germany d France. May God use it for e peace of two great nations at have fought each other for years. We look with the highest nse of appreciation to Eng d in its brave and honest ggle to pay its debts ahd to intain itself with great exer n and sacrifice in view of ttt over-crowded population of ffrrty millions of mostly labor ilg people within the narrow L Tory of an island no larger n the single state of North rolina. God bless the country sb closely kin to us in language, fch literature, in religion, in the dements of a joint Anglo-Saxon ni&anhood. It is upon the friendly p stations of these two countries b tat under God the welfare of b ie world depends. In the rest of the world, on all t, mtinents, things are going on j ithout any particular change; 3,0 we dismiss our rapid view of World conditions and come to our own dear land. The United States. The chief event in the past year was the election of a Pres ident. Again the stability of a untry built upon democratic ciples has been vindicated, lit a land which as Ahraham incojn said is “Of the people, the people, for the people.” rhis great election was, wrought perfect peace. So far as we ow not a single life was lost id the excitements of voting by nearly thirty millions of peo ple and when the result was proclaimed everybody acquiesced in it at once with good will and peace, even the aspirants fot office. God has again been very good to America in the harvests of the year—the figures of three staples will give us a sufficient idea* of the results of God?s bounty over all our land—cot ton, about thirty million bales ; wheat, nearly nine million of bushels, and corn two billion and a quarter bushels. The American people would be saved from many a commo tion if only immigration could be controlled so as to get the desirable people, without the burden of the undesirables. This is perhaps the greatest social problem that we have, the solu tion of which every citizen, man or woman, should watch with the very Closest care. We are thankful to God that with all our national faults, in His great mercy, America is still, in the eyes of all the world, ‘The land of opportunity.” JNprth Carolina. The New York Times has said this about the new North Caro lina that has come to be: “If ever a commonwealth went, in head over heels to boom and de velop itself, that commonwealth is the Old North State. It is a financial, industrial^ commercial regeneration.” This judgment has been accepted cordially by all the other states of* the Unioni What are some of th$ reasons : of this remarkable change in the / condition of a state which years ago was con sidered as being behind in al most every form of develop ment? The President of the United States, has, with his usu al keenness of vision,' giver three: reasons for this marveloue new development of North Car olina : the. agricultural activity the manufacturing progress and the development of watei power. < ... The population of North Car olina is growing very rapidlj without any appreciable in crease of immigration from for eign lands. Outside of the soutl the foreign stock in the Unitec States at large amounts t< nearly one-half of the popula tion. In New York City 76 pe] cent of the population is of for eign stock. In North Carolina th< foreign element is the smalles of any state in the Union, th< native population being 99' 3-10 per cent. This native population has increased so rapidly on ac count of the remarkable birth rate in North Carolina, wherein it exceeds all the other states, and the remarkably low death rate, in which it is also round the top of the list. The result is that we have a homogeneous and rapidly increasing popula tion. They are all of the same language and mostly the same Protestant religion. They know each other better, can talk with 1 one another the more satisfac- ; torily, and can labor more vigor- : ously hand in hand. < This is furthermore the case i in the agricultural life. In many other states the population '< streams into the great cities ] which are becoming congested. 1 We have no great cities in North 1 Carolina but a number of small- 1 er ones and very large towns 1 and prosperous villages, which gives a better average chance to everybody. The rural districts in North Carolina are not de- , serted—a native people is cul-;' tivating them with ever increas ing good results and the beau-i{ tiful new homes which one sees ] along every road show how con- ( tented and prosperous they are. * * * . The great development of im- 1 proved roads has added to the : general benefit of both town and country. We cannot give North Carolina’s annual mile age growth in some of the fin- ; est examples of road building in ' this country, because our work of scientific road construction is proceeding with such leaps arid bounds that one scarcely has given a statistic ' on the subject before it is al ready antiquated. The progress of the school system in North Carolina is al most unprecedented. The value of the school buildings and grounds in &orth- CaroUina. has-. in. 20 years gone up from $1,000,000 to $48,000,000. Seven years ago North Carolina spent $1,000,000 a year on school maintenance, last year she spent $23,000,000. •And so it has come to pass that in its manufacturing estab lishments, in the value of its lands, and in all other resources which it has, North Carolina has multiplied its total wealth by 10 in the last 20 years. Winston-Salem. Anybody who rides, over the city after having noted its in crease in stately buildings, in greater or smaller churches, in school buildings, and in magni ficent mansions, will come to the conclusion thats. after all its chief wealth is in the very great number of modest, comfortable homes that have been built or are now in process of building. The suburbs are rapidly growing in every direction and on the western side of the city . the stately R. J. Reynolds Memorial Auditorium with its accompany ing great high school looks down in all its beauty, upon the pop ulous valley below. There al ways awakens, however, in the passerby a regret that the wide hearted and generous benefac tress, Mrs. Katherine Reynolds Johnson, has not lived to see more of the good which she has so nobly instituted. * * * No year in the history of Sla ter College has seen such exten-1 sive physical development. Four additional buildings costing when furnished approximately $200,000 have been completed during the year, of which the most important is the adminis tration building add recitation hall, combined, erected to take care of the wotk of the Normal School ' and Teachers’ College. The objective of Slater is a four years’ teachers’ college for the trainings of well-disciplined lead ers of the colored youth in mod ■ em educational and industrial lines, n In this development the city: of (Winston-Salem through its school system is rendering ■ the utmost cooperation with ■ Slater and is furnishing oppor i tunity. for practice teaching and [ observation which combine to » give the. Slater Norrhal and In ■ dustrial School the best eduea • tional opportunity of any simi ■ lar institution for the race in i the State of North Carolina. The Moravian Church. 5 In view of the detailed and valuable accounts which the pastors of the several affiliated churches will now give, we con fine ourselves to a general sur vey of the condition of the Mo ravian church in town and coun try during the past year. It has been in some respects the most remarkable year through which the southern province has ever passed. It has been a 12 month rf unprecedented liberality, and in the giving by the one part iffectionately for the other, rhe many new church edifices arising and the other improve ments are all contributions out >f the pockets of hte whole membership, showing their good vill to each other and the desire >n the part of all to benefit the jarticular section in which God las placed them and so to serve ;he glory of God in the salva ;ion of as many souls as our be oved church is called to reach. * * * Conclusion. Thus we come to the conclu jion of our year’s record in vhich the bright lines, thank jod, exceed the dark ones and >y which we hope to encourage >ur brothers and sisters in do ng all the good they can, for ;he church, for the people, and ’or the Lord, in the hope of be ng able to do still better when ;hey come to the kingdom, to :he beautiful land that lies be yond. NEW STARTS IN LIFE. One of the things people often lesire is another chance. “If I lould only live my life over again,” they say, “I would do jo and so.” Vain, indeed, is the asking. None of us can return and begin again but we can be gin right now and just where we are and make the remainder 5fTffrg9^eet,~s"<rfta*^ ' * useful that we will have little time to regret the past in the joy of present service. Next to numbering our blessings, the happiness of forgetting our hardships is one of the sweetest experiences of life. With the New Year let us take a new start in thinking and speaking kindly of others so far as that is at all possible, and when we cannot commend, try to keep silent, unless by do ing so we betray a friend, vio late truth or mislead some one. When in doubt lean on the side of charity and forgiveness. Each year, each month, each day, each hour offers opportuni ty for a new start. If it is not improved what assurance have we that if life could be lived over again we would make more and better out of it than when we stood at its opening gates with the morning sunlight in our faces. If sorrows are written in the book of life for us in the com ing years they are mercifully hidden and let us be grateful that we do not have to bear the load until it comes. For most people the coming year will have more of sun shine than shadow, more of suc cess than defeat, more of health than sickness. Be glad, be brave, be strong, be true; sow sunshine, dispel clouds, cultivate good will, strengthen the weak, cheer the lonely, comfort the sad, be ten der to children, affectionate to parents, kind to the unfortu nate, just to air and faithful to God and there will be little to gain by a new start. These are our best wishes for the New Year, but whatever experience comes, meet it with confidence and composure. “Our lives are songs, God writes the words; We set them to music at pleas ure. And the, song grows glad or sweet or sad As we choose to fashion the measure.”—Moral Welfare. The census of 1920 showed over 1,000,000 children from ten to sixteen years of age work ing in the United States in fac tories, mills, canneries, agricul ture, mines and in other indus tries and occupations. * Nearly 400,000 of them were between 10 and 14 years of age.
Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.)
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Jan. 15, 1925, edition 1
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