Newspapers / The Star of Zion … / June 16, 1921, edition 1 / Page 1
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SI THE GfFICIAL ORGAN OfTliE AfMCA m NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR CHARLOTTE; NORTH CAROLINA, THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1921. ' VOLUME FORTY-FIVE A. M. E. Zion In Los Angeles. REV. H. B. GANTT, A PROGRES SIVE PASTOR By Mr. Edward Lyons* The Zion church should be appre ciated not only by* its members but by every Negro of Los Angeles, for indeed,' Rev. Mr. Gantt i.s making it the people’s church, and they are in everything for the advancement of the race and the Kingdom of God. Among the many things that the trustees of the church throw its doors open to are as follows: The Eastside Mother’s Club was given the use of the church for Mr. Lewis Mitchell, that wonderful Jew, who believes and preaches the Fatherhood of Gcd and brotherhood of Man. Second, the N A: A. C. P. (National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peo ple), has its* board meetings regu’ar b ly each month in the pastor's* study, and very often the auditorium is op en to its monthly meeting. They unveiled their charter at the A. M. E. Zion Church and the ser vice was impressive, and will ever be remembered. The Legion boys’ drill, 30 and 40 strong, every Thursday evening in the basement, learning’ how to hold their shoulders erect and how to carry themselves in general, and Rev. Mr. Gantt always has a com* pn hand to serve a hot lunch and the choir of hie t, and everything and everybody is going to Zion now. Why? Because they have every whit a gentleman in Rev. H. B. ®antt, the pastor, who knows just how to treat everybody, and the cannot be surpassed, any trustees where. Mr. E. R. Swain, the chair man of the board, is a business man of no mean ability, is also the pres ident of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He is the only colored man holding at- position of the kind in Los Ange les, or in California, for that matter, to the U. S. Customs. Mr. Beverly Fields is the treas urer of the church and is loved by • everybody for his integrity and” hon esty. Mr. Horace F. Wheaton is sec retary'of the board, a young man who holds a position as clerk ip the city | post office. He is an excellent vio linist and is one of the musicians in the choir of the churchx Prof. W. M. Bynum another trustee is the chorister of the church, and he is the leading chorister in the city. Mr. J. H. Majors, a mechanic and contractor, another quiet, unassum ing but forceful character in the church; not only is he trustee, but a fine bass singer, and last but not least is Mr. S. M. Maddox, one of the most useful and most pleasant men in the church. / And the usher board and steward board and all are so courteous and hind, you just delight in worshipping In Zion. _ And, then too, it is a beautiful church for colored folks, and we get an interesting, impressive, help ful sermon every time we go to Zion. No foolishness, but real wor ship. Let us remember friends, that this beautiful church belongs to us as a race and not as a denomina tion. Brother E. R. Swain is president of our Benevolent Society, and when ever a member of the society is sick don’t have any red tape, but we give each sick member $2.00 a week $1..K0 at death. Our church is well organized and l is determined to make a success. Everybody is in harmony: No fric tion in our church. GREAT PROGRESS OF THE EOS ANGELES CHURCH. By Mrs. Maggie Banks Hood. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” and “the darkest hour is just before the dawn.” Along in tfie spring and summer of 192t) our sky was black with the .... .. - N. J., dnd seft him to take charge of of the Los A ngelesn church made va cant by the resign ition of the Rev. J. E. McCorkle*.. Rev. Gantt tools charge on the 22nd of August' an l since that time Zion has taken oi a new impetus and has gone forw ird by leaps and" bounds, encouraged and helped by his most amiable i|nd friendly wife. Not every man $rould have 4.aken hold of the situation as Rev. Gantt' has done. Not evei*y one would have h"en willing to Sfake the sacrifice A. M. E. ZION CHURCH AT LOS ANGELES CALI | thunder clouds of discouragement; I the storm of unfriendly sentiment and dissension burst ubon us in sol | emn and awful fury, Zion was, dashed about here and there by the grinds of adversity and. no shelter seemed h?.rce here. And | He had othe: i, bigger church y-nearer home, almost loose ’ie essj,.ry it was a $ churches’ off| es, b'gpvr Ij T> :s chrrch REV. H. B. GANTT, PASTOR OF THE FI£ST A. M. E. tT. CHURCH spaired. Our enemies—and alas! they are not all outsiders—hoped we would be dashed to pieces on the shoals, but there were some loyal, God-fearing earnest hearts in our little band and they sought the Throne, “every day. every hour,” that God would send someone to the rescue. Our prayers were answered and on the 22nd day of August 1920, the^e was sent to us a ipan of God, full of zeal and of the Spirit of the Christ, he serves. Bishop L. W. Kyles, that peerless prelate, saw our needs and searched the country until he found the man for the place—“the square peg for the square hole.” He found that man in the person of Rev. H. B. Gannt, M. A., in Atlantic City, i lem. A house divided against itself. On these grounds, he could have pre ferred some other field, but he said to Bishop Kyles, “I’ll go,” and he came. There can be no doubt of' the progress of the church when we ■earn that during 21 Sundays of his itinerancy there have bs-n added to the church 100 souls, or more than four a Sunday, 56 converts, and the peopl* are being broe gr' into har monious .v ations one with the oth er. Each member is made to feel that to build up the House of God he must be a strong 1L k uniting ard wielding the whole together. Rev. Gantt has a large vision and has the capacity, the p cr to impreg I naie the church with that vision, thi s bringing to Teal fiultion. He Continued on page 8 THE NEED OF^C NEW AND BETTER SYSTEM IN THE CHURCH TO-DAY By Rev. W. L. Hamblin, 1). D. I want to call attention to a f$w observations touching certain regitv. lations in the system-of our Church which we are bound to admit are not only injurious, but greatly im peding the progress of the Church. We must, first of all, apprecate the fact that we are living in a new and progressive age. This is truly a new day when everything is stripped of loose and time worn, take-for-grant ed methods. We are living in a day when the mind of the peop’e is prone to suspicion. Really it is an evil thinking day, and the Church if it would keep time with this age that is now upon us must adopt a system that offers the least possible oppor tunity for one to think evil. That is to say, everything should be done in such a business like way that those of us who are inclined to think evil wou’d have little ground for such thought. We must admit that the system of our Church is so loose and time worn that the whole Church is sub ject to criticism. The business sys tem in vogue for handling the finan ces of the Church is insufficient to protect those who handle money in this day of evil minded people. Per sonally, I believe all of those who handle the Church’s money are hon est, but with the present system, I can’t prove to the many who will ask me why. For instance, Ihe ■finan much money a conference raised, and the cbnferenhe does not know bow much was reported to head quarters. Bad system. Another; when the men pay for the various Church periodicals, it is so easy to make mistakes m making new lists. Names will nu'era l.v he omitted, and with no receipts given at conference, I have no way .»f prov ing .bat I paid ant Hie publis’-is have no right to •* >1 pape ^ if they did not receive my subscription.— Bad system. And further, a system where ever man pays himself is bad. thou eh he may he ever so ho rest, h® has *° way to prove it. The Bishops’ receipt is anti-bel lum. No progressive denondnatio is handling it today. We ought to raise our General Claims, report it monthly and not have the Bishop running round trying to collect his salary. Most any Church now has a better system of pacing the pastor than we have for our Bishops No pastor collects from the class leaders, 'hut he has a steward who assembles! ^ all the money for pastor’s support, and then takes his receipt for it. All is a growing experience with me, and I know it is true With oth ers that our people are loyal and law-abidding, and they will yield to written law. But we have no writ- , ten law today, for the few disciplines you find annoying us are out of date, and any discipline dating fur ther back than 1920#is out of date, for the most part. And what we have is too indefinite and time worn. The Church is too big now and the age too enlightened and progres sive for any one man to write all the law for it. The spirit and vision and need of the Church must be cen tered here by men representing ev ery angle of it. We ought to get out our disciplines at any cost and sacrifice. Why not take Ter-centenary money and get them out. I am not kicking nor grumbling, for I am a worker and Continued to Page 5 The Christian Sub stitute for Force Spiritual forces form the foundations upon which our institutions rest. Great social structures, like the family, church, and state are sustained by the power of faith, loyalty, justice and love. It is not only of the kingdom of~ Heaven that is “within” men, but al so the empires of the eax*th. When loy alty to the Czar died put of the hearts of the Russian people, Nicholas f »und himself a helpless man in the midst of his vast estates and former armies. Napole m could conquer Furooe after he got an Urmy o-’ soldiers, to die, if need be, for France and the c'.pevo i; but Napol-.oa did not get the “grand army” by the might of his fists. He won them by champion ing their cause, by dazzling their imaginations, and winning their hearts. Physical force alone is inadequate to preserve our institutions. Its use. is unnecessary and usually harmful/ Once men believed that Christian faith could only be preserved in the last resort by violence. The dungeon, rack and stake were used to protect the laith and preserve the church. To day in America the church still sur vives and flourishes without reliance on force. There probably'was never an age when Christian belief was so wide-spread and. vital. Likewise the family has survived, held together by affection, although we no longer force unwilling women into the marriage bond, and the rod is little used enough to disarm its most danger® foes by treating them with justice and love, without the threat of arma ments ? Altruism is as ancient in the history of even prehuman life as selfishness. Kropotkin has shown in his “Mutual Aid” tl i t the popular misconstrr.ct;:r» of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest is far from scientific. It does not mean the survival of the most self ish or most brutal or even the strong est physically. God is not always on the side of the heaviest battalions. We have learned to train men to courses of conduct within limited areas con trolled by altruistic motives. Parents give themselves for their children; patriots die for their coun try. Tradition, history, literature, monuments, public ceremonies and celebrations glorify the deed, praise the heroism, and perpetuate the mo tive. A similar all-pervasive educa tion enjoining the practice ©f univer sal brotherhood, calling out in us and trusting in others a code of unselfish' honor in all personal and international relations would produce a Christian uniyersalism as reliable as the basis o| social institutions as is nationalistic patriotism; and as far above it, as modern patriotism is above the tribal clannishness of ancient Scotland or Israel. Women and children who form the great bulk of human society are, from the point of view of physical force for its protection, quite helpless. Yet wo men and children are quite safe in any society, where the appeal of their win someness and need is sufficient to be get in the hearts of men respect, chiv alry, or pity. It is only in war time, when force is invoked for their os tensible protection, when women and children suffer wholesale violence, when the force fails, as It tlid in Bel gium and France. ':$4 We should equip ourselves as a na tion to deal with the problems of in ternational relations not by the use or threat of force, but by the agen cies of helpfulness arid good-will. We ought to have a Secretary of Peace in the cabinet to direct such work as the sanitation of Havana, Vera Cruz, and Panama, the Panama Canal, and , Continued to page 6.
The Star of Zion (Charlotte, N.C.)
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June 16, 1921, edition 1
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