Newspapers / Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.) / July 25, 1935, edition 1 / Page 1
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t m EJMHdVjrH / • WLKL ’JibSMMkt ■ ■» L., ■ \ • ••• *'V 1 ... Jlpl ^ I | 1 S w V'V H ‘ . 1 r ':^HPP rB 1 ■ " V. Is ■ ^ H w» JB t 9 ■ folis wotiR auHtca (From The Richmond Christian Advocate) We have a big church out our way. It is Cosmopolitan church. That is, all sorts. You ought to codro out to our church and meet some of them. You have heard of the Pil lars? They are in our church and we couldn't get alpng with out them. Brother Pillar is a steward, and Mrs. Pillar is the President of the Aid Socie^ and the Missionary Society. The preacher arjd his wife could not get along without Sis ter Pillar. She goes over to the parsonage oftener than she goes to the movies and when she has anything real nice to eat she takes the preacher’s folks some. She looks over the parsonage, and, when she sees anything that is needled, she does not wait for the preacher’s wife to ask for it, she goes and gets it and reports to the Society. Sister Pillar and Brother Pillar and the little pillars are always at church and the preacher seems to preach better when he sees them. Have you ever heard of the Sleepers? They, too, belong to our church. Mr. Sleeper and Mrs. Sleeper do not always at tend, jbut when thqy do they get a good berth and often Mr. Sleeper snores out loud. The funny thing about it is he is thi first man to rush up to the preacher and tell him what a grand sermon the pastor preached that time. The Kickers also belong to our church. I don't know when they joined, but I think they are charter members. ^ Brother B. A. Kicker and his wife,.Mrs. Kiekeiy-are.~the head* the family, and! they have sev eral children with in-laWs and out-laws. Nothing ever suits them and they are always let ting it be known. They never like the preacher. One preached too long and another one preached too short. One wife dressed too line and the next one didn’t dress well enough. They never like the prograins of the church and refuse to fol low the plans laid down. But we can’t get along without the Kickers, because they are rich and prominent socially. Brother Kicker is chairman of the Board of Trustees and he nearly al ways goes to Conference iook for a new preacher. The Knockers also belong to' our church. There is a large family of them. Colonel Ur A. Knocker is head of the family. They all attend church and take a prominent part in every thing. It is very hard to suit these folks. They are cousins to the Kickers and belong to the same social set. Colonel Knock er is always telling us about the bad side of everything. He is chairman of the Pessimistic Club and works overtime com plaining about the state of the government and the church. He is always harping on how things are going to the dogs and how much worse the young people are than they were when he was a boy, but he never supports the Epworth League nor any other organization designed to help the young people in the church. He does not believe in picnics and socials in the church and always uses his influence against such things. We have another man in our church known by all who attend. He is Mr. Jim End Seater. He always parks himself right at the end of a seat and refuses to move up when the others try to get into the pew. He never pays any attention to sugges tions from the ushers and seems to take delight in having women and children climb over his feet. There are several branches of this tribe, but all of them are alike. Tom Front Seater is this man’s cousin, but he is a differ ent man. He always sits on the front seat and pays attention to the preacher. He says he knows enough to know nothing de presses the preacher mdre than bare wood and empty seats and he is sure most preachers rath er have empty heads before them than empty seats. Tom is a jolly, good-hearted fellow and {everybody likes him. He has a brother, however', who is not like tom. His name is Bin Back Seater. Bill always gels the back seat *next to the do<vr. No {one ever saw Bill sit anywhere else at church. > We have a prominent woman in our church you may knew. She is Mrs, Jennie Sensitive. She used to belong to the First Church, but one day the Super intendent failed to put her lit tle son Reginald on the Chil dren’s Day program and Sister Sensitive left the First Churc! and brought her letter to oui church. People say she is a go. .V. woman—but”—and when people say a person is good person but—"you better get your hat. Sister Sensitive always puts on her wraps while we are singing the last hymn and rushes foi the door before any one can see her. Then she says we have the 'coldest church she knows. It is not like the First Church where people are cordial. She has been in our church a year and: no one. not even the pastor; ever notice! (her when she comes to church. If the pastor calls on any one on her street and does not come tc her hotyse she is hurt. She al jways gets offended" when the church sends her a reminder oi her dues. Says she is not dis honest and considers duns fn suits. T wonder if she ever get! * ‘ >eery jte$4*r Hi .wf vv«er places. Another wbmah you may know* in our church is Mrs. Kate Late Comer. She always comes and she always comes in late, usu ally after the offering nas been taken and she marches down to the front and sits next to the front seat. Sister Maggie Tell aboutit is whispering all the news of the neighborhood, such as all the family disturfrtnee.s, whose children have adenoids, who is to be married, whose ser vant has quit,' who has a new radio and all such stuff. When we get a new preacher Sister Tellaboutit is the- first one to call, and she tells the preacher enough to fill a book, before he has been there a week. Another prominent family in our church is the Cants. There are several of them on the church roll. Mr. I. Cant is Presi dent of the First National Bank and a successful business man with vision, but, when jre comes to church work, he is always discouraging the preacher and all others, who try to do some thing. He says we can't get up the collections, we can't build it new Sunday school annex, w< can't have a revival, and! wc can’t do anything. He has i brother, Mr. U. Cant, who is a dealer in automobiles. He has i big business. He always backs up Mr. I. Cant in church affairs. There are two other brothers. H. F. Cant and W. E. Cant, and they are alike. The Cants are the most prominent people , we have. They live in fine houses on the Boulevard and have two fine automobiles each. They take long, expensive trips in summer and wear fine clothes, but they do not think we can possibly do what the Conference asks us to do in our church. One of the best men in our chutch is I. Will Staqdby. He never talks much, bpt every preacher says he has no better friend than Bro, Standby.. He always comes and he always .stands by the preachejr and' the program of the church, Ifd oft en visits the parsonage and is friendly with ‘the preacher’s Children. He is nearly always the last one to leave the church after services imd walks by the (Continued on page 4) lam now three score and ten and two years oW. I have passed the Scriptural allotment and 1 aim still going strong. I was placed on the retired list- two years ago for purely calendarial reasons rattier than on account of failing strength mid ph-yska1. or mental infirmities. ~ I was for four years a* con temporary of Abraham Lincoln. There has been greater trans formation in the material as pect" of civilization • since my birth than had taken place from jthe time of Adam until then. Abraham Lincoln never saw arr electric light, rode in an auto Imobile, used a telephone or lis tened over the radio. The intei lectual transformation has been' ino less marvelous. Darwin's “‘Origin of the Species” was pub lished in 1859, four years before imy birth, but did not come into general acceptance and vogue Until some twenty years after. This discovery has caused the readjustment of religious, polit ical, economic and social thought of mankind. NGr is the end in sight It does not yet appear jwhat the rec >nstractive though: shall be, 'at we dr know thap lit will be traceable back to Dar win and the theory of evolu tion; All of chis ti; nspired dur ing my life time, although I can hot .say with Aeneas, “Magna pars quarum fui” (I was a great part of those things) , yet I can jtruly say that the" span of my life covered these great trans formations ! The seventy-two years of my: ilife may be taken as- a yardstick to m«^re the-progress of the untiVnow. ’ I came to notice things at the fag end of recon struction. I have known and in [a measure nave toucneu anu been touched by the great men land measured who have shaped the destiny of the Negro race, jl have seen the political exper iment 'reach its height funder Douglass and Langston, Pinch back'and Bruce, and have seen ‘it fade almost to nullity, and then again take new spurt un der DePriest and Mitchell. 1 have seen the religious life of the race reach the point of high est hope and expectation in the great A. M. E. Church under Payne', Wayiman and Brown and then to decline »ri a lower level of moral and spiritual energy and enterprise. I have seen the educational' life of the rac< buoyant with the hope of salva tion through learning, and then to -taper down to hundreds of thousands of college bred men and women who are seemingly satisfied to get * place on the white 'man's pay roll. I have watched the agitative organize tions of the Afro-American League, the Niagara Movement the Equal Rights League to the National Association for the Advancement off Colored Peo ple. They have all arisen, flour ished and faded, except the last mentioned, which is still func tioning. I have seen business or ganizations flourish for a season like a green bay tree, and then wither at the top for want of depth of earth. >. • I -have -always maintained some sort of a self-distance from those movements. I have mixed with action only to a limited de gree. I never entered actively into the political arena, in re ligious leadership, nor business enterprises, nor into fraternal and social organizations. I have been, in the main, an observer and a commentator rather than a director of the current of ra cial life.' :?• I was bom with a certain equipoise of mind and am not easily swerved by the hysteria bf the moment. I have incurred the reputation of not being will ing to take sides in issues and controversies to which fhe race is sotreadily prone. My intellect ual sanity saves me from such futile partisanship. I th* fury that raged for two dec watched adas between the advocates of hipther and industrial education, “ became the blind partisan hpr. From the start I a just appraisement of value of both. I realized relative importance and five impotence. I re thirty years ago speak in Beaton and presenting briefs, one for the higher and one for the indus . education as contributive fetors in the solution of the m. Of course, I was as a compromiser and At that time Booker Jjf Washington and W, E. B. were the irreconcilable __ ate. I stood midway be tipeenithe two, appreciating the erits of both and their defi elides. Twenty-five years later. »th schools have come to my atfbnm. Dr. DuBois, in deliv ing the; graduating address a' loward University several , acknowledged the of both the higher and dustrial education as a solvent tr tiie race problem. In m> Bunder's Day address at Tus ypse last April I stood precise : where 1 did thirty years age id watched the storms go rag W fhy.. During the past forty ears , since I began to comment a public life I have engendered ipeh acerbity and some bitter but I like ve no enemies. 3 rt Hubbard—“My are my friends who mis* toed me.” I have nevei ini do not now hate a sin individual M. cally dislike many of thd atti tudes and faults but have always disentangled the genuine from the excrescent in character, hate the sin, and yet love the sinner. I have never hated the whit* race; on the whole, I have pitiec ;hem. After severe self-search ing, I have feared in my heart >f hearts that had there been a transposition of places I shoulc possibly, nay probably, had the same disdainful attitude to wards them which they now exhibit toward the Negro. Ther [ know that I should: hate my self. I have always preserved s more or less unruffled attitude and stood aplomb amidst irra tional things. I have the pa tience of Job which could cry out in deepest despair and dis tress, “I know that my Redeem er liveth.” I have an abiding faith that all human problems of which the race problem i? but a 'troublesome incident, will finally be solved. This will not take place in my day but I trust that my. past forty years of en deavor .will neither hinder nor delay that great consummation in God’s fullness of time. I have been able to maintain this equi poise of mind mid calmness of spirit because of a certain in trovert psychology by which J am able to sink into the sub-cel lar of my own soul while the storm of life goes raging by. I shall devote the remaining years of my life actively along the saihe lines of endeavor. I shall not allow myself to be car ried away by any sudden nos trums, political, religious or ec onomic. Here I stand. I can not do otherwise, God help me. I am npw engaged upon my autobiography which I hope will be ready within the next year or so. A picture of the type of life which I have striven to .live in its relation to the racial and general movements of my day and generation, it seery to me, .ought to make an interesting story, if not ai worthwhile one. The Extension service in North Carolina is receiving much praise these days from Negr0 newspapers which call attention to the fine support and recognition given Negro work ers.—Extension Farm News. t ■ i m lpi ■!i . ..Jit'. . - > AN APPEAL HI REINSTATE THE ENGLISH MULE AS ACHE OF MORAIS Mtt CHUSCH, SCHOOL. STATE AMS NATION (Repraited from a booklet by the Rev. Robert EUiott Fltelrin- * yer, D D., Rockwell City, Iowa.) AMERICA PRESER VED FOR FREEDOM Article VII ; “Proclaim liberty throughout dll the land to ail the inhabi tants thereof.’’— Leviticus 28: 10. ■ ■ - . This Jubilee Proclamation 01 Liberty by Moses for the chil dren of Israel -was put on the Liberty Bell, obtained by Wil liam Penn, the Governor, ii. 1862, for the tower of the State House in Philadelphia, Penn sylvania. V The Bible Suppressed j The Bible is the common in heritanee of all mankind, ltwat given not merely for the chil dren of Israel as at Mt. Sinai, but for the Jew and Gentile, for rich and poor, master am jservant. Our Master’s last am 'Great Commission was to preach ithe gospelf to every creature This Great Commission wat given to the Church, that ah might haye knowledge of God, the Sabbqith and his holy word „ The Bible is the light of thi intellect, the forerunner of civ jlization, the charter of true lib erty, the«>secret of nationa. greatness. It is the oni impor taut book for both old ano yotthg and individuals and na tions. “It contains the mind of God, the state of lnn^i the way oi salvation, toe down of sinners and the happiness of believers. Christ is its grand subject, oui good its dfer.ign, and the glorj of God its endL Search the*Se|aSL tures for they testify of md, sait Jt*us, our blessed Redeemer, i ‘Let there be light,” and “in lioawetrusv A) e iamiurv-. watchwords of pa triotic Protestantism in Amer ica. - Protestantism emphasizes the Sovereignty of God and the supreme authority of the Bibk <Authorized Version», as the inspired and! infallible Word; the brotherhood of man, and: the sanctity of the Sabbatr as a da v of holy and sacred rest—the Lord’s day; and the mutual re lation of protection and sup port, but complete separatior. of Church and State. The protest of America ^gainst Roman Catholicism as expressed in the constitution at the birth of this nation, means: Common justice and equal rights to all; an open Bible in the churches, schools and homes, oi the people; the sobriety, health and longevity of the individual; the purity and virtue of the homo. It means exultant songs of praise and patriotism, instaac of the ribald songs of paganism and dissipation. p t “In the beauty of the lilies (Christ was bom across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures yob and^me: As he died" to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God and truth are march ing on.” “Let there be light,” and “In God we trust,” are familiar watchwords of protest by pa-' triotic Protestants in America. Protestantism by its protest, emphasizes the sovereignty of God, and the supreme authority of the sacred Scriptures. If instead of the Protest ant exiles — the Pilgrims, Scotch-Irish Puritans, the Hir guenots of France and the Pro testant Exiles from Germany and Switzerland-who came to.the shores of America as colonists, there had come those who were prompted by greed for gain like those who migrated to Mexico, Central and South America; how different would have been 1 the result! What, if Spam had sent to our Eastern Coasts colo ' nists of the same Icind that ' went and settled in Peru, Yuca 'tan, and Mexico? Or, if Portu gal had unloaded her colonists ; in our land, instead of Brazil? Instead of the civil and reli gious freedom established by the Protestant American color nists, who brought the open Bible with them, there would have been the ignorance and repulsive superstition of Rognan Catholicism. There would have been no free speech, liberty of the press, or Declaration of In dependence; God, in his own good provi dence, did hot permit the war like and oppressive nations of Europe to cast lustful eyes upon America, until he had prepared a lot of intelligent, God-fearing people to take possession of it. While adherents to thgvpapacy at Rome grasped Mexico and the West India Islands, includ ing Cuba, the best part of North America was settled by Bible * reading exiles and colonists, who represented the best blood and strongest nerves of the world—people of whom the old < world was not worthy. America Pr^iervedf for Freedom The discovery of America in 1492 was one of the most signal' •events that followed the begin ning of the Renaissance, or ed ucational awakening in Italy, 'that followed the dark period' of the Middle Ages (476-1500),' v from the defeat of the Roman ” Empire at Constantinople to ihearovivai ef.JeanungJ'u Eng- , .*& land, Scotland, Italy and Swit zerland. The early settlement of Amer ica, two centuries after its dis covery was by a few brave souls, who, emerging from the darkness, superstition and cruelty of the Middle Ages, in Europe, made their way to this new continent and founded in America a form of civil govern ment, based! on humal rights and individual liberty. The Renaissance, the new period of learning, due to the people’s receiving their first knowledge of the Bible, though it was undfer the ban of the pa pacy of Rome, gained immedi ately by the discovery of the new lands and great riches in this new world. The French Revolution of 1798, with its reign of terror, was an out growth of it in Europe. Think of the remarkable fact that half of the inhabitable sur face of the earth was kept from the knowledge of the people on the other half, 5,500 years. When one thinks of it, it must seem strange or providential that the very early settlements along the Atlantic Coast of America, with the exception of those of the Pilgrims and Puritans, had a distinctly selfish aim, and their progress was disappoint ing. The early Spanish settlers in Florida and the English Cav aliers, who brought with them to Virginia the servile notions of /the ipoijtical aristocrats pf England, were alike lured by the hope of gain, which they soon found they could not at tain. The motives that prompted the early Swiss and German settlers of Pennsylvania to come •to America were altogether different. They were Puritans and Protstants, a product of the Protestant Reformation. Flee ing from a tyrranical, political and pdrsedMting :ecclesiastical oppression, they sought the privilege of founding homes, schools and churches of their own in this new world. Proving true to their moral and religious convictions, their work in a ! wonderful manner has received unmistakable marks of divine approval. , (Continued on page 4)
Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.)
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July 25, 1935, edition 1
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