Newspapers / North Carolina Christian Advocate … / Aug. 22, 1918, edition 1 / Page 2
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rage Two EDITORIAL To Our Subscribersj We aie now sending out statements to our subscribers who are in arrears, and we earnestly ask for a. prompt response. If you cannot send the money, please write and let us know when we may ex pect it. If you think the statement is not correct, kindly tell us what you think is correct. Wo do not wish to collect anything that is not due us. Do not con clude that we are in error because you have sent a remittance' in the spring. Many paid then whose renewal has fallen due again by this time. Look at your label and si? what it says. Usually it conforms to our books. If it says that your renewal is due and you have not re ceived a statement, you can save us trouble and expense by remitting at once. Please give this matter your kindly attention. ..th-nUi effect will be felt all around the world Yet the strongest appeals made in that august body for the perpetuation of the liquor traffic will be for the revenue that the govern ment derives from it. Never was an argument r.ore false, and its falsity has been shown a thousand times, and yet it will be solemnly re affirmed by some of the solons at Washington. But we do not believe that it will prevail. The nation demands prohibition of the liquor traffic, and let every reader of these lines hurry a mes sage to his senator that he wants him to stand lor national war time prohibition. Forward with Christ Notes and Comments Kutification of the Prohibition Amendment goes marching on. Louisiana has fallen in line. A special session of the legislature was called to consider this and other prohibition legislation to convene on August 5th. On Aug ust 7th the Senate in which the amendment had previously failed on a tie vote ratified the amendment by a vote of 21 to 20, and on the next day the House ratified it by a vote of G9 to 51. It must be remembered that Louisiana is a wet State and that it is the sixth wet State to ratify out of the fourteen that have ratified the amendment to date. II II II Have You Enlisted in the Students' Army Training Corps? This is the place for every young man to enlist now, if he is prepared for entering college; or, if he has already entered college, he should enlist in this way and continue his studies. It is true that one so enlisted is liable to be called into active service at any time; but on the other hand he may pursue his studies to the completion of his: college course. The point is that this step puts a young man in such an attitude toward the government that it can use him for the highest service of his country. If this service can best be rendered by going to the front, he will be called there; tout, if his country can best be served by pursuing his studies and qualifying to meet the issues that are impending, he will be permitted to do that. At any rate, this is the first right step to take, and the others must be taken as the exigencies of the times reveal them. No young man can afford to do other than prepare himself the best possible for the issues that he may have to meet. Do not fail to get in touch, with the authorities at Trinity College and be ready for the opening on September 25. v n t War Time Prohibition will be up for consid eration in the United States Senate in the next few days. Apart from all the moral issues in volved and they are the most momentous of all there will not be before Congress a more important question for the conservation of our resources than this. The licensed bever age liquor traffic is the most destructive agent that is now at work in the world. Here is an opportunity to conserve coal and railroad cars and foodstuffs and man-power all at a single blow. There is no other one time when Washington can hit the Hun such a decisive blow as it can by enacting nation-wide straight prohibition of the whole liquor business. Its We have felt, and do feel, strongly the drift of our day toward an invertebrate type of reli gious life a life that does not base itself upon any deep convictions of religious truth. A few weeks ago we gave expression to some of our fears in this direction in an editorial under the caption, "The Breaking Down of Religious Con victions." The learned editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate in its issue of August 7th gives a kindly but critical review of our utter ance. We are glad that he did, for it carries our voice farther than we could have carried it alone; but there are one or two things in Dr. Mather's editorial that seem to call for an addi tional word from us. Our confrere says: "This writer heard the ad dress of the distinguished Major Chaplain Gor don at our General Conference at Atlanta. He heard with approval and unusual satisfaction the story which told us how the faith of salvation through Christ, in the chaplain, led him to use the simple device of the wooden cross to pre sent Christ to the dying boy. The act toid tha boy that his chaplain had no theory to present and no theology to teach at that crisis hour. The cross had no meaning to the boy but as a symbol of that redeeming love which has made the cross the fittest symbol of Christian faith ever employed as an object lesson in the teach ings of the Church." It is well to note here that Dr. Mather assumes that the boy had the true conception of the cross and of its relation to the redeeming work which Christ accom plished on it. We asserted that if he did, all was well; but the very point we questioned, and that the whole history of Catholicism in the last thousand years, Thomas a Kempis and a few other saintly men notwithstanding, justifies us in questioning, was just what our kindly critic assumes to be true. Of course, there is no way of determining whether it be true or not, and we did not undertake to dogmatize about it. Nor did we condemn the chaplain's act. Whatever was done then must be done quickly and in the twilight zone. He could probably have done nothing better. But to hold this up as an ideal attitude of the Church toward the great funda menal doctrines of our holy religion under the normal conditions of human life is altogether another matter. Yet this is the drift which many signs of the times are indicating today. Dr. Mather continues: "Did the Savior, who died for the boy, permit his soul to sink to per dition because he had, not a certain distinct theory of salvation? 'It is easy to make an. idol of a cross.' Is it not also easy to make an idol of a creed?" No! the Savior did not per mit the boy's soul to sink to perdition because he had not a distinct theory of salvation. He never permits any soul to sink to perdition that He can keep out. This sentence must have slipped from the pen of the learned editor with- Dill lllOUto111' 111 '-"1- iiiatvc UUL !ils CctSH It is preposterous to think that Chris! permit any soul to be lost whom He can in any possibi. way save. He sealed with His own dt-ath Hjs desire to save all, and by this crimson nw 0I His blood He enforced His invitation; "Conm unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But that saint; death put an unmistakable emphasis upon the i'act that the only way of salvation was through the atone ment which that death consummated--a fa(;l which our sentimentalists today are almost to tally disregarding. Again, our canfrere seems to us to con fuse t lk great doctrine of the atonement with some defi nite theory of the atonement. For our part, we never had any theory of the atonement. By this we mean that no human attempt, to mold thr great truth of the atonement into a specific theory has ever been satisfactory to us. Some of the truth, is probably in all of the theories, but we do not believe that all of the truth is in any of them. In other words the tremendous: tact of the atonement is bigger than any or all of the theories that men have wrought out con cerning it. The Doctor wholly misunderstands us, if he thinks that we are contending for any specific theory of the atonement. We are not concerned about theological specula ions. It is the fundations of our faith that we would hold with unyielding tenacity. The greatest theolog ical speculators that we know are the men who decry theology in order to give loose rein to the vagaries of human fancy. They speculate with a vengeance, and about things with which theol ogy is concerned; though most of their postu lates lack a place in any accredited system o; theology. As to the slogan of our friend, we are not greatly concerned. Slogans are generally halt truths thrown off when the mind is at white heat and looking at a subject from a single view point. If approached from a different angle, th" falsity of them is .nearly always apparent. 'I5aek to Christ" may be somewhat antiquated, and -Forward to Christ" is also getting with age now. We have heard it since we were a school boy, and that has been some weeks at least. For our part, if we must have a slogan, we would prefer "Forward with Christ" to an other we know. We want no intervening spaces between us and Him whether front o rear. And the older we get the doser U.' theology, if we have any, sticks to Him u,u cross and resurrection as the centre of e thing worth while. Patriotic Service, College Training and the Draft Law An American Council on Education nab organized in Washington, made up of ; great educational bodies of the UmK'd - ' -i the fOVci" raid working in co-operation with m - ment. This Council on Education has bee ganized to keep before American vou their parents the urgent need for aU (,oun. can to enter college next September. e w-mhiiig'ton il" cii maintains headquarters m has a State Director for each State. Directorf or North Carolina is PlluU' '".g; week the statement of the case whu i ., valuau'e "J low can I render the mo be. service to my country during tne fore I am called to the c0l0,ld(lK the young man under draft age is question. . in1,ntr ave a The war department this sum"
North Carolina Christian Advocate (Greensboro, N.C.)
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Aug. 22, 1918, edition 1
2
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