Newspapers / The Star of Zion … / Sept. 22, 1898, edition 1 / Page 3
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BROTHER BIDDLE REPLIES. ' - HE CRITICISES THE EDITOR AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. ' j BY E. GEO. BIDDLE. Editor Star of Zion: My Dear Brother—I cannot answer your tirade in last week’s Star; you take the prize on :hat style of writing. I am willing to “stoop to conquer,” but I am not willing to roll in filth jn orde r to answer your jo-called arguments. You threaten to publish my private letters to you. I say, DO IT. 1 have not written anything to you or any one else I am not willing to have “publ shed on the housetop.” You slur Holiness and the Zion Trumpet, the only Holiness paper published by the Negro in this country, but those familiar with your writings are not surprised that ycu slur Holi I You are so far lost for an an swer to my criticism of your con duct as Editor of the Star that you go back eight years, to the time jwhen I called you to task for your I blackguard wri ting in the Star, and then as an offset to my criticisms you yell ou t that I am a Democrat, as though i;hat was any bodyfs business or bad anything A to d|> with the subject in hand. You wrote me a w lining letter about my criticism of your editor ial work in the Star, and out of pity for you I wrote to you that you might omit that part of my article. You did so, but you at the same time wrote your mean and unmanly answer just as though you had published all of my article. Now I iemand that you either publish tb e rest of my article or return it to me, for which I send stamps. You with others seem to think it a smart thing to de nounce me as a Democrat ever time you are driven to the wall by just criti cisms of unmanly acts. Do you know that anything you can say on that line will have no more ef fect on me than the Spanish ships and batteries had on Dewey’s men of-war? The fact is you with many of our so-callei leaders are so blinded by prejudice, and are * so ignorant or thougatless in ref erence to the true slate of affairs in this country that you are sjtill harping on the Republican party as the hope of the Negro, just as though we had any Republican party now worthy of the name. The Republican party of Lin coln, Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, Thaddeus Stevens and William H. Seward was buried with them; that was a party of sterh convictions of what was rigljt and just, a paity having the courage of its convictions, a party of high moral principles. Now we have a party culled the Re publican party, but, it is a party without any moral principles, a party of spoils, bribery, greed and selfishness, a party whose mission it is to crush the poor at the be hest of the money power. In the place of Lincoln, a l>orn leader oi men and shaper of events, we have McKinleyf a putty man in the hands of unscrupulous dema guoges; instead of Charles Sum ner the liberator, we have Marl Hanna the briber; instead of Wil liam H. Seward the statesman, w< have Tom Platt the trickster. McKinley did nol have the man hood or statesmanship to enter in to the righteous war for the liber ation of Cuba ubtil he was forced into it by the Democratic press, and then, though waging war to liberate Negroes from oppression, he discriminated against the Ne gro in his call for troops, and even those holding commissions in the Regular Army he caused to be detailed away from their regi ments. The military and naval academies and one important, branch of the Regular Army (the artillery) are closed against the Negro, but McKinley as Com mander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy does not lift a straw to right the wrong. Republican govern ors all over the country chime in with him in his wilful and wicked discrimination against us as a race, but still self-styled leaders shout themselves hoarse for Mas ter McKinley and a defunct Re publican party. The great State of New York has not a single Negro soldier in her militia, and Governor Black cannot see any way to remedy the wrong, and yet we are urged to re-elect Black and cheer for Mc Kinley. We hope and pray that they will both be buried beneath an overwhelming Democratic vote, (never to be politically resur rected,) and by the help of God we intend to assist. in the burial. When you say that the Zion Trumpet is published in the inter est of any party you are mistaken. The Zion Trumpet is published in the interest of purity in Church and State, and is and ever shall be free and untrammeled—free to criticise any officer in Zion—to call the Editor of the Star to task when he uses our Church organ to give vent to his spite and to bol ster up his unholy ambition. The Star of Zion is supposed to be a religious journal, but no one would suspect it by reading its columns for the last few weeks or months. Troy, N. Y. HOLINESS. BY MRS. E. J. RICHARDSON. There are many things said about holiness in the different papers.. Some for it, some against it. Some say you can be holy, others say you can’t live holy down here. What shall we believe? We that can read the Bible should not be so intent on what we think, nor what we desire, but on what the Bible and* the Holy Ghost desire and teach in any matter whatever. In regards to holiness, many perhaps have tried to get it; fail ing to do so, as they supposed they would, they have passed the sentence of error upon the doc trine. Now my friends, the Bible is holy. It was written by holy men of God. In it we read, “Sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy.” Lev. 11:44. “Be ye holy, in all manner of conversation.” I Peter, 1:15. Bishop Hood, in his address to the New York Conference, spoke rightly when he said: “No man ought to be ordained elder or bishop i who is not entirely sanctified.r , Read, if you please, in Titus—“A bishop must be blameless,” sober, just, holy. Oh, we must separate ourselves from the sinful things of : this world and receive the Holj Ghost as an abiding comforter, s We must follow Jesus. In follow ing him we are following holiness. Brother, listen: God has said, with ' out holiness no man shall see the • Lord. Winnie, JW, (7. THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. ITS RELATION TO THE CHURCH. ZELMYRA PETERSON. The relation cm be compared to parents and theif children. The Sunday-school is the nursery of the church. The people of the church must help constitute the Sunday-school, and by their examples train the young mind by teaching them what Christianity is. If the good seed is sown they will reap good men and women, for the children of the Sunday-school must some day become ths members of the Church. If the Church and Sab bath-school have worked in unison, when possible, i;he rising genera tion will have some conception of what duties they will be expected to perform in tie near future. Then the pastor has a great in fluence in the Sabbath-school. If he pays some attention to the young folks as well as to his flock upstairs, just as a father should pay some attention to the innocent prattle of his small children as well as the larger ones who have more knowledge, much good will be accomplished and the little folks will not s;and in awe of him, but will respect and obey him. The pastor that will not notice the children will not win their hearts to God. They will not desire to join the church. If he interests himself in the Sabbath-school as well as the church members the scholars will Income attached to the church and will not be obliged to be coaxed and urged to assist in church work; for as the mem bers of the chv rch pass from time to eternity, there must be some to fill in the vacancies or the church will dwindle into non-existence. The Sunday-school is the future church and is literally what the present church makes it. Our pastor teaches the young men’s Bible class; he is generally to be found in the Sabbath-school always ready to help and encour age the young people to do right. May he have as grand a success or even a greater success during the present year, as he had in the past. The Sabbath-school wish him all of God’s speed and‘pros perity. 1 New Jork City, N Y. THE CUBAN SITUATION. BY REV. T. H. WILLIAMS. % ' We are so much absorbed in “territorial acquisition,” “right of conquest,” “abolition of the Monroe doctrine,” and our foreign policy that we have almost forgot ten the religious situation that confronts us in Cuba. In feet very little has been said on the subject. It in a known fact that Cuba is Roman Catholic in reli gion. The whole island is given over to Catholicism and has been for centuries. Columbus tx)k possession of it in the name of the queen of Spain; and the Pope for the Church was then, as now, united with the State—that’s one problem. They are Christiana, which cannot be successfully denied, and more de voted to their religion than we dare to be. Would it be right for the Protestant churches of Amer ica, especially African Methodists, , to proselyte them from their cher ished faith, or shall we go to con vert sinners tn God and his Christ \ I am in fa vor of the latter but bit terly opposed to the former. • Then another serious fact cor fronts us. There is no prejudice in God’s world like the American prejudice, and just as sure as we go down there preaching a sepa rate Negro Church, just so sure will the Southern whites go down there pre:iching a separatedness in every thing else. Cubans know nothing c»r little about prejudice of any kind. They live peaceably together, worship together, all things are in common. Maceo, Garcia and Gomez were honored alike. H American caste preju dice is to go there, in God’s name let some one else but not any of us carry it there. Let us keep pace with the times. Let’s plant Zion churches everywhere. Let us also be careful, less we might do that for which we might be sorry. What think ye, brethren? RogersviUe, Term. DOING WELL. 3Y MRS. IDA SNOW. The St. James A. M. E. Zion school is alive. Our pastor, Dr. G. W. Walters, bears a great name in our little town. He is loved by everybody and knows not failure. I think we can boast of leading Children’s Day. We raised #12 in the morning. We opened Sunday-school at nine o’clock with the Superintendent G. B. Snow. Teachers: W. A. Greenlee; H. B. Bride and Mrs. E. J. Jackson. Our classes are growing so large that we have di vided them into four classes, and the fourth teacher is quite a young boy whcse name is Warren Davis. Pray for him that he might make one of cur great bishops in Zion some day. Grady, Ark. EGYPT NOTES. BY R3V. W. F. M. EDWARDS. The future lookout for a Zion church here looks fair. Several families here own their own homes. The old people seem to be much interested to have their children brought up under Zion. Last year I only had two class-leaders, namely, M. B. O. Jones, and Lee Johnson. They moved off be cause .they could not be suited in securing farms. So my church now is all minors, number 25. However I have been attentive. I am planting Zion here in this wil derness. I thought once that I could not stand, as this seemed to be the hardest place that I had ever heard of or witnessed in the history of my life. This is a Hard Shell Baptist community. I hate to say it, yet it is true, that some of our Zion brethren have slipped around on my work and caused me unneces sary trouble. Brethren, remem ber whatever a man sows that will he also reap. It is a wonder to both w aite and colored how I have managed to support a wife, seven girls and a horse. I have done one hundred dollars worth of painting here for the business men in this town since the annual Conference. They calftne a first class painter. I do think that the ministers of Zion ought to show their sympa thy and not try to pull me down in my trade, but encourage me. My tine is coming. I will suffer till my deliverer comes. 1 ku m. a • Jku_. WOMAN ORDINATION. We admire the manner in which Bishop Small*pr esents his views. He is mild in his mode and invit ing in his doctrine; but the Bish op has entirely failed, in our opin ion, to prove his case—the evi dence produced by him is insuffi cient to establish the validity of woman’s ordination to the work of the gospel ministry. The conclusion of his evidence rests upon Phoebe and Priscilla— deaconesses, which to our mind, is foreign to the subject. He refers to Romans 16 :1 and 3, and to Acts 18 :26. What has that to do with the ordination of woman to the work of the gospel ministry ? The Bishop, in another place, says that “Phoebe was an ordained deacon;” but the Bible does not say so; and the Bishop, by saying so, transcends the boundary lines of privilege,—eh. A deacoriess, in the church, is simply the wife of a deacon, and there is nothing to show that ordination was ever ac corded the office—dea coness. And even if it could be proven that woman had ever been ordained to the office of deaconry it would not validify her ordination to the work of the gospel ministry. There fore, the Bishop is lc st to his--sub ject. What we have above said applies to Priscilla and Aquilla, Rom. 16 :3, as well dk to Phoebe Rom. 16 :1. It appears a little strange that, in this enlightened day, the eve- ♦ ning of the nineteenth century, there should be so great a condi tion of restlessness in the Church respecting woman’s ordination to the gospel ministry, and stranger still to find the bishopric on the affirmative side when it is a direct departure from the custom of the fathers, and absolutely without Scriptural authority. We would advise the brethren to take heed to their ways when they shall have read: “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask -for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk: therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. ’V —Jer. 6 :IQ—Petersburg (Fa.) National Pilot.' A FEW FACTS. REV. L. H. HANCOCK. It is a great pleasure every Fri day morning to go to the office and get my paper, and if I fail to get it I feel as though I am lost, for there is such rich food in it. Mr. Editor, I wish you would make it convenient to visit our lit tle city. We have colored doc* tors, merchants and land owners. I am glad to see thc> Star shining so bright in its improvements. We have no church there, but a good outlook for one. I am a young minister just started out. I embraced religion in September 1894 under Rev. A. P. Pettey. In 1896 I was granted exhorters license. My parents were strict Baptist, and when I was growing up never allowed me to go to the Methodist Church. But as I grew in the knowledge of Meth odism I cast my lot with Zion. God bless Zion and all her host. Bishop G. W. Clinton is leading this West Tennessee and Mississ ippi Conference to the highest standard. He is niy Bishop and a loving one. We have a good pre siding elder—Rev. D. L. Irvin. Greeniwod, fflsv* _ ------
The Star of Zion (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 22, 1898, edition 1
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