Newspapers / The Star of Zion … / July 21, 1898, edition 1 / Page 1
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ORGAN OF THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION CHURCH IN AMERICA. L__ ' Volumt XXII. ----- Charlotte. N. C., Thursday, July 21, 1898. • — _ Number 31. FOOD FOR THOUGHT. Dr. John E. Prices’s Com munica. tion Reviewed. BY BISHOP J. W. HOOD. The venerable ex-Presiding Eld er, Rev. John E. Price, D. D., from his quiet retreat, .sends out some food for reflection which is worthy of careful and respectful consideration. Indeed when the Fathers speak, from their deep research and ripe experience, the younger genera tion should always give an atten tive ear to what they have to say. And notwithstanding I have kept more closely up with the law-making of our Church for the last forty years than any other living |nan, have attended every General Conference since 18(i0, have bieen present every day of every sfession since tha : time, ex cept a few days of the session at Mobile; two years ago, and have paid attention to everything done, yet T should lie very slow to take issue 'with Elder Price unless I was entirely sure of my ground. And in any case I shou id treat his opinion with most respectful con sideration. The! article which he contributes to the Star should be carefully studied. I may make this general remark, that my experience has taught me that too much m lour own Discipline has been over looked, and that there has been too miuch going after l aker, which was Written more than thirty years ago. I It is quite likely that even the Church for which it was writ ten basin some measure outgrown It. The point which Dr. Price raises respecting the judicial au thority of the Bishops, I think 1 have sufficiently met in my answer to Elder Snowden. In the inter val ojf the General Conference, the Bishops are made, by positive law, the highest authority in the Church. To secure to every mem ber liis rights, they may be called upon to exercise both judicial and executive authority. The pastor who! governs one church has both judicial and executive authority; the individual Bishop in his dis trict has the same. And it would be sjtrange if the Board of Bishops to vjliom is given the government of the entire Connection, had not the same breadth of authority that the pastor has. Their general su pervision includes both judicial and executive authority. They ham exercised judicial authority and have been sus tained by the General Conference j [ \ Respecting the membership of the traveling preacher in the lo\ cal church where he resides. Dr. . Price bases his argument against such membership upon thev omis sion of “traveling preached” in the enumeration of those included in the pastor’s charge. He asks: “Why are they so carefully ignored by our own Dis cipline, wherein defining the pas tor’s duty, no mention is made of them?” If the good Doctor will look into the Discipline published by Bishop Jones, in 1856, or any other Discipline o| our Church, published before 1880, he will see that they were not carefully ig nored, but are carefully mentioned. And then he will see that his ar gument based upon the omission tumbles to the ground. Now the question may arise, why are traveling preachers omit ted in the Discipline published since 1880? The answer is not far to seek. In that year the General Conference provided for the pre siding elder system. This change made it necessary to put the trav eling preachers into the presiding elders’ charge. And we thought it not necessary to mention them in ttie other place. Possibly we made a mistake in this. Certainly if the omission in etiect changes the spirit of the original law, it was a liberty which the compiler had no right to take. I do not th'nk that, did, and certainly I had no such thought at that time. For 84 years, from the first or ganization of the Church, accord ing to the point made by Dr. Price, tho traveling minister was a member of the local church where he resided. The only thing he finds to throw any doubt upon his membership is the omission above mentioned. Since this omis sion was not ordered by the Gen eral Conference ihe doubt is re moved. But aside from this, if you will turn to the 82nd page of the latest edition of the Discipline you will find the following: “ the general financial plan.— DUTY OF MEMBERS. “ Every member of our Church, including Bishops, ministers and preachers, is assessed the sum of fifty cents per annum, to consti tute a general fund.” Here you see that not only the preachers and ministers are included as members, but also the Bishops. It is made the duty of the pas tor to collect this assessment from every member in his charge, even the Bishop who resides in his charge. In accordance with this law I have paid my assessment to the pastor of the church at Fay etteville ever since the law was enacted. I have also paid the pre siding elder’s assessment to my class-leader. And if I should stay away from class, when it was con venient for me to attend, I am sure that the leader would not hesitate to remind me of the great pleasure it gives him to have me present. Respecting the merits of this subject I may write something later. There may be much more in it than appears on the surface. Waterbary, Conn. i " * The question of female elders in Zion Church is being fought and discussed from every point of the compass, and it seems that the talking in open meet ing is becoming more general as the dis cussion progresses.—Charlotte (N. C.) Independent. TOPICS OF THE TIMES. Star—Dream-Woman Ordination —Paul’s Advice. BY REV. F. M. JACOBS, B. D. Editor Star of Zion: Permit me to congratulate you upon the fine appearance of the Star in its new clothes. Every step the Star has taken since you have taken charge has been upon the advance. I find much of good reading in its columns which justly gain for it the soubriquet of the leading Ne gro paper in the States. I dreamed that I went to the commencement exercises of Liv ingstone College; that I was pres ent at the meeting of the Board of the College and took part in its deliberations; saw the imposing buildings and witnessed the classic air of professors and students alike; heard the sweeping elo quence of the amateurs in their debut as speakers on the stage that has trembled under the mighty, thundering eloquence of Fonvielle, Davenport, Bibb, Doug-, lass, Provinder and Colbert who, testing the range, inflections and sweep of their voicej, entranced the passing crowdS*which sweep’ down College Avenue. But, alas! I awoke, found a copy of the Star, read the report made by one “ Westerner ” and found that it was all a huge joke, and judging from the report, I had not been there at all. The people I saw, the conversations engaged in with old friends and acquaintances, the promenades taken, the exhilarat ing music to which I listened dis coursed by the {new thing under the sun) college band, and ren dered by polished vocalists, fore most among whom are Jno. W. Walker, the basso prof undo, W. L. Trent, the inimitable tenor, were illusions. If such fancies can come to one, what will the real | pleasure of the presence be? I have wondered why I was not noted among the arrivals, at least when the list of visitors from a distance was made up. Well, the debate as to whether a woman should be elevated to the position of an elder or not is enough to make a mule laugh when one thinks of the men who are debating the question in the negative and associates them with the discussion'of the same ques tion exactly two years ago May past. Before Some of them go too far let them remember that this question was before the law-mak ing body of Zion Church and at that time th^ alarm gong was sounded and they, many of them, heeded it not,‘but were blinded by compliments paid to the Church in its advance over other denomina tions in giving woman so many more privileges than her sister de nominations. Many of the gen tlemen referred to the fact that women would aspire to be elders in the Church and that the elimi nation of the word ‘‘woman” from the Discipline would give her , i ' ; the privilege to aspire to any po sition^ the Church, the position of a Bishop not excepted. I was opposed to the action at that time, I am opposed to it now, but since it is a woman’s right to aspire to these high positions in the Church under the law as it now exists, and since it was in the power of the men debating the question to have used :he ammunition they are now wasting to have prevented the thing about which they are now complainants, I take the ground and position as a defender of her rights only on account of the gap in the law. The General Conference at Pitts burg had the same question under debate and at that general session the bounds of woman’s clerical privileges were set, that action be ing the result of careful consider ation of the question by men of matured years and thoughts. This last statement bears a semblance of a charge that these matured thinkers were not active at the last General Conference. They were there, but were either out numbered by the other kind or intended i;o permit things to go on, that the wisdom of the selec tion of many of the delegates to that quadrennium could be ques tioned afler the lapse of a few months. Much is being written these days of advanced (?) public think ing upon the rights of men to en ter the public prints, assail and of fend theii superiors, malign them and almost demolish their citadel of veracity and hold them up to public ga:?e as dishonorable occu pants of positions of public trust, unworthy of the reverence that the general public is due them by reason of that position. While I do not believe in biting your tongue when occasions give rise to the necessity of defending one’s honor, but when there has been no offense given (personally) and indeed none intended in general utterances, that man is to be looked upon with a deal of suspicion who “rushes” into print to as sail; especially is this to be de plored when he hits at the very foundation upon which the respect of the Church is to be built. St. Paul in delivering his last charge to Timothy established a rule that should be observed by all. In his charge to the church at Ephesus he said: “Servants be obedient unto them w ho are your masters.” Ephesians 6:5. In other places he demanded that honor should be given to whom honor is due. Rom. 13 : 7. There is an amount of re spect due a Bishop in advance of a clergyman in the lowrer seats in the ministry, and many of these young men have either lost that respect or have never received the proper training from the start. There are some men preaching in the Methodist Church, the Zion Methodist in particular, who ought to be preaching in denominations which are under a congregational form of government, or change ! change !! change at once !!! SOME SHELLS FALL. A Comparison of The Star and Recorder—-Zion Defended. BY REV. SYLVESTER L. COROTHERS. Editor Star of Zion: I compli ment you and Dr. Blapkwell on the very splendid improvement you have made upon the Church organ. Truly the Star of Zion is a first-class Christian newspaper and a happy visitor to any man that desires to be informed with reference to the leading opinions of the Christian world. I am pleased to note the differ ence between the status of the Star and that of the ' Christian Recorder. The Star is filled from start to finish almost with first class, original and philosophical matter. The Christian Recorder is generally about half tilled with advertisements of such things as “■good medicine for headache, neu ralgia, pain in the stomach, rheu matism, hair dressers and barber shops.11 I don’t know whether its the intellectual dullness of its managers or whether their natural condition makes it a necessity. According to the latest reports Bishop Turner has wrought a mir acle in his last visit to the Father land. However, Bishop Turner said in the Voice of Mlmlonr, that Bethel and Zion both were liars, # ’ and I am of the opinion that if there is any class of churchmen in this country that understand lying, Bishop Turner knows them. I am glad to see that our Bish ops, though humble, God-fearing and intelligent, have resolved as a unit to defend the rights and rep utation of our Zion; and they are fully able, with God on their side, to meet the crisis of the age. If any silly churchman should think they are not, he will likely* meet what Bishop Derrick met in Ar kansas when he attacked Bishop Holliday. I have it from reliable sources that Bishop Holliday has stirred that whole State- If Bishop Derrick don't mind. Bishop Holli day will play with him as Sampson did with Cervera at Santiago de Cuba, July 3, 1898. All of that talk in the Recorder about the Editor of the Star being “narrow” and not in the ordinary channel with the religious editors, is an admission of the fact that you are their superiors. Every department of Zion Church is ably * represented, and by a united move in the right direction, Zion is des tined to become the; foremost Ne gro Church on the face of the globe. Elm ira, N. Y. Livingstone College, at Salisbury, N\ C., was started in 1882 with three pupils, three teachers and a matron. There i3 now a faculty of 19 instructors and pro fessors, five departments with a building for each, and an average yearly attend ance of 250 students The College is not endowed, receives no help from the State, and the greater part of the finan cial assistance, some $13,000 a year, is derived from the colored people.—Pitts burg Press.
The Star of Zion (Charlotte, N.C.)
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July 21, 1898, edition 1
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