THE ORGAN OF THE NORTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS-DEVOTED TO BIBLE RELIGION, EDUCATION, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE,
Volume 66.
RALEIGH, N, C, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1901.
Numtxr 35,
DO THEY REALLY FAVOR THE FREE
. SCHOOLS?
It is well known that there is scarcely
gufficient money in the State Treasury
to provide the barest necessities of the
free Schools. It is also known that every
cent taken for other institutions deprives
tv, f rflo h mools of just that much.
MV w w ....
In view of this and in view of their
.wifoeainnR of KO ll fflf the free Schools.
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we thought the presidents of the States'
institutions of Higher Education would
for consistency's sake and the sake of
their reputations, if no more, refrain
from endeavoring to get increased appro
priations from the State at this General
Assembly.
But, lo and behold, on Tuesday night,
February 26, Presidents Venable, Mclver
aid Winston appeared before a very
meagrely attended meeting of the joint
Committee on Education and aeked for
the following appropriations, the extra
ordinary increases of which the reader
will please take note of:
THE STATE UNIVERSITY.
Regular annual appropriation
25,000, making for the two
years, "150,000
Annual increase 115,000, cover
ing a deficit of $2,500 a year,
insurance, assistants and in
structors, - - 30,000
Vnr rpnnil-H - 3.500
For debt $4,000,and sewer $3,000, 7,000
Total for two years, - - 90,500
STATE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE.
Regular annual appropriation -
$25,000, making for two years, $50,000
For the debt, - 25,000
Practice and observation school, 12,500
Gynasium $10i000,library $2,5Q0, 12,500
Total for two years, - - 100,000
A. AND M. COLLEGE.
Regular annual appropriation
$10,000, mak ng for two years, $20,000
Annual increase $15,000, mak
ing, 30,000
Textile building, - - 25,000
Machinery building, - - - 15,000
Dormitory, .... 10,300
Chapel. 15.000
Gynasium, 20,000 i
Total for two years, - - 135,000
It is in the papers right f ; equently that
at least one of the?e gentlemen is in Ral
eigh ia the interest of the free schools.
In view of theaoove, that statement may
be taken with a grain of salt. One may
be ever so mush in favor of the free
schools, but if in the time of their great
est need he lays a grasping hand upon
the only hope they have, his friendship
were better dispensed with.
The queation is raised, Are tnese gen
tlemen and their institutions really in
favor of helping the free schools! We
do n it want soft speeches in reply, but
good actions.
Along with this we commend to their
attention the following editorial from the
Raleigh Times, the afternoon daily:
"A cumber of State institutions come
up to this Legislature with large debts,
and ask the General Assembly to pull
them out of the hole. It has been the
practice for some time for a State build
ing to be merely started with the appro
priation the legislature made for it, so
that the next Legislature will have to
appropriate as much more to finish it.
Who authorizes the various State institu
tions to incur large indebtedness! And
if such debts are incurred who guaran
tees that the Legislature will make any
Appropriations to pay them! We have
Sod men at the head of ourinslitutions,
Patriotic men who are giving all their
time and attention to the institutions they
fect, but in their seal to advance the
interests of their institutions some of
them have gone too deeply into debt If
we Legislature should some time fail to
wine to the rescue, some of these insti
tutions might be in a pretty bad fix." ,
? All three of the institutions have debts,
though the A. & Ma is not, for some
te, mentioned.
yiWi all respect to' the gentlemen, we
onld remind them that their course does
ot display interest in the free schools or
consideration for the State and the party
id power. We hope, however, that com
mon sense and high duty will have way
In the General Assembly,
Poor Preachers.
THE JOURNAL OF ONE OF THEM BROUGHT TO
LIGHT.
Some churches have poor preachers.
The preachers do poor preaching and
poor pastoral work. Sometimes one thing
is the cause and sometimes another thing
is the cause. Sometimes it is the fault
of the preacher and sometime the church
helps to cause it. I know a case. In this
case the church helped to make the
preaching and the pastoral work poor.
The preacher had taken a high stand
at college and had taken medals in his
literary society work. Bat he was fail
ing here, and the people were grumbling
and complaining. He preached poorly
and visited poorly.
One day I had access to his journal,
and I think a few extracts from it will
help to explain his poor preaching and
pastoral work.
May 5, Thursday. Wife has been in
bed since Saturday and seems to have
malaria. It is giving me my hands full.
I was feeling as if I could not keep up
when she went to bed. And now I have
the cooking to do and the housekeeping
to look after. Last night was prayer
meeting a failure on my part.
May 7, Saturday. To-day I am
years old. Wife is in bed. I am having
everything to do. It has been go all day,
cooking, washing, waiting on wife and the
childrand trying to get something to
cook. It is now half after ten o'clock at
night and I have not done anything for
to morrow. How can I preach under such
circumstances!
May 9, Monday. Yesterday I preached
twice and attended Sunday School in the
afternoon. To day I have felt worn and
feverish. Wife is still in bed. I am hav
ing everything to do. " It is hin
dering my work right much. I can't do
any pastoral work. I can't study.
These are very dark days to me. I am
not getting money enough to meet run
ning expenses, to say nothing of paying
debts. I get about $6 a week, ana there
seems to be no improvement. I don't
see how I can possibly meet my obliga
tions. May 31, Tuesday. A month of close
cutting economy and we get out on
$29.82 for running expenses. Have paid
some this month on interest and some on
debt.
June 4, Saturday. Got up at 6 a. m.
At 8 a. m. went to livery and got car
riage and took Brother , nearlydead
with consumption, to ride. Closed
meeting at the mission last evening ten
professions.
June 28, Tuesday. The day closes
finding me much cast down. I have tried
to keep up and have been trying to do
some pastoral wor. But it is hard to
keep up courage. Wife is in bed again
with her temperature 101 degrees. I
can't pay a servant. I have been out this
afternoon trying to do some pastoral work
while wife has been lying a; home in bed
with nobody but the caildren to help her
(oldest child nine years old). I have
found it hard to koep up courage while
trying to live on $37 50 per month, $8 8fc
of which goes for house rent. I don't
see
anv Dossible chance to pay what I
owe. it iooks now as u i snaxi
celled to drop my insurance.
be
com-
It
digs into my vitality to stand up under
these adverse circumstances.
July 2, Saturday. It has been a very
hot day. In addition, I have had a lia:ht
fever, so that I have done nothing.
I have now been here six, months and
have received between $225 aid $230.
As 1 1 iok bck over the,last six
months with its small salary, and then
look forward with no propect of in
creased salary and no prospect of paying
the premium on my insurance, I feel dis
ouraged. July 12, Tuesday. It has been to me a
terrible day. Sunday I preached with
more liberty and to larger congregations
than usual and began to feel encouraged.
Monday morning came. The
collection for my support amounted to
$2. During June I had in all $25.55. Last
wetk I had $5.50. Here is Tuesday
no flour in the house, no meat in the
house, only a pjund or two of meal, and
no money to get anything at all; for the
$2 had to go to part pay what I had to
borrow last week. Where the washing
is to come from I don't know. Wife is
hardly able to drag. Y She' has no help at
tOf And now there is nothing to eat ex
cept buy on credit, wi'h no prospect in
the worl 1 of ever being able to pay,
Thirty-seven and one half dollars per
month promised , salary,1 etaht . and one
third dollars per month of that for house
rent, tlx in familywife almost an inva
lid flour six dollars per barrel, meat ten
to twelve cents per pound, all needing
clothes tnd shoes, with detts contracted
preparing to preach still hanging over
me and the interest running, no way of
prospect of meeting my insurance due in
a few weeks, the best part of life rapidly
passing while I grow older and approach
the time when I shall be less able poor
met it cuts to the very depths.
Little do these people know how they
are hurting themselves by thus crushing
their minister, making ic impossible for
him to do pastoral work or to preach
successfully, i How they, gome of them
getting from one hundred to one hundred
and fifty per month, can expect t heir
church to prosper when they force to live
on $37.50 per month him whom they ex
pect to be a leader and to be lively and
cheerful and on the go all the time, and
whom they f xpect to be in the best of
shape on Sunday to sooth and comfort
and encourage and direct and inspire a
congregation oh me; how can it bet
These glimpses of a man in actual ser
vice in our own State indicate that some
times poor preachers are not entirely to
blame for their poor services. ' -
REVILO.
Thoughts from a Powerful Address to
Southern Baptist.
J. B. GAMBRELL IN TEXAS BAPTIST STANDARD
ON "THE WASTING OF A GREAT
OPPORTUNITY.
Moving out in the direction of the
Promised Land, in a most striking man
ner, God taught His people and us, if we
have eyes to see, that when God sets His
hand to a thing, there are reallyno diffi
culties. The hour of waiting at the Bed
Sea, hemmed in on all sid??, was a tre
mendous hour for the children of Israel,
but it was an hour of the Right Hand of
God. I take it that we may at least get
this lesson for ourselves: There are no
difficulties in the way of carrying out
God's purposes except the paralysis of
unbelief. It is quite as easy for God to
do a great thing as it is for Him to do a
little thing, and if He chooses to use a
man to do it, then the man can do it, as
easily as he can a little thing. If it lay in
the purpose of God for a man to carry
the Rocky Mountains and lay them as a
highway across the Pacific Ocean for tne
Gospel, it would be altogether as easily
done as it would be to build a sailing
Doat. - When we get to God in religion,
we literally get to the end of all difficul
ties. The greatest sin lying at the doors of
firmthprn BjDtists to-dav is their ease in
Zkra, and their waste of money amd-op-4
portunity. We have organizations reach-1
ing down, or up, wnicuever way you
choose to mention, to the remotest coun
try church, but these organizations are
not op rated with vigor. We have waited
too much for the spontaneous combustion
principle to move the great sleeping
masses of Southern Baptists. When I
was a boy I went to a blacksmith shop in
a little village, and saw a man making
what he declared to be a perpetual mo
tion, or a self-propelling wagon. I need
not describe it, but when he had com
pleted it and subjected it to the test
elected by himself, the thing stood still.
He studied it long and seriously in the
different parts, then gave it a push with
his hand and said, "It will 'most go."
Alas, for our visdom I We have made
organizations and expect them to go with
out the vital force of a living soul pro
pelling them. None of our organizations
count for enough and many of them,
good in themselves, are a reproach to us,
because they are not operated to any
good end.
The point I am driving at is that we
face a situation in the South which calls
for the exercise of the highest human
wisdom, enlightened by the wisdom that
comes down from above. Not half the
churches are taking any part in the holy
war for the conquest of the world. Many
associations are taking no part in it.
: C': k" ij-- 'i i-r- i- Skii.-Ji. Yi: Y"Y': -
i There is an awfully weak place eome
trhere, and somebody ought to find it and
all of us mend it. I venture to say that
the Southern situation has outgrown the
Southern conception. That is the tap-:
root of it, and that tap root bears perpet
ually an abundant and variegated top-'
crop of evils and misfortunes. One of
the evils is that we do not gra?pagreat
situation and turn it to the right nee. : We
have not grappled ; with it. The vener
able Secretary emeritus of the Home Mis
sion Board, like a, John 4ho Baptist, hag
cried for years to make a straight path
for the oncoming opportunity. A good
many nave laughed, even when they
have seen great ; cities grow up under
their very nose. '
The spirit of the Southern Baptist Con-;
vention is not heroio enough. There is
too much looking back and not enough
looking forward. And I venture to say
it without knowing whether anybody
will agree to it, that the fear of spending
money to get money has confused the
councils of the Convention. We are in
timidated by the cry of thof e wh t,a
large extent, think economy in missions
is holding money, whereas the truth is
that economy in missions is in the light
expenditure of money.. Our Northern
brethren are far ahead of us in this re
gard. TJie expense account of the Home
Mission Society of New York is about
$40,000 a year. "My I" somebody will
say, "how many missionaries that would
send outl" Yes, and that is the kind of a
man we have been taking tne advice ex.
Listen at the other half of it t Their In
come is about $500,000 a year, It is a
fool in any business who would not give
a dime to get a: dollar for his business,
and who will dispute it!
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We need changes. Here are 'some sag
get tions. The best money we can spend
in the South is the money we wisely
spend in arousing, enlisting and training
God's great army of baptized people in
His service. I take no stcck in the abuse
of our plain Baptist people because they
are not interested in missions, and I have
a positive aversion to the mathematical
brother who figures out what per cent of
them are not converted. I know as well
as I know anything, that untrained peo
ple can not be efficient. If we spend $10,
000 each year -through our Home Board
or any other way, to reach, enlist and
train the Baptists of the South for ser
vice, it would be ' the most far-reaching
money ever spent7"We act like a farmer
who spends bis money to buy ; young
colts end never takes any measures to
train them for service. They will eat him
oat of house and home and do him no
good. Of course. I am speaking now of
efficiency in mission work. Y
Let me accent what I have said at two
or three points. Take the mountain re
gions of Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee,
North Carolina, South Carolina and Ala
bama, in which there are tens of thou
sands of Baptists. They are the lett
blooded people in America healthy,
strong, resolute,1' bright-minded; They
are the finest people on the continent in
the rough, and yet how little they affect
the world I The Presbyterians are spends
ing among these people approximately
$l 00,000 a year for their education and
training. Does anybody believe Presby
terians can train the leaders of that
country, and the population remain Bap
tisticf if he does, his capacity for believ
ing is enormous. What are these people
worth to us, if we would develop them!
I give no figures.-rThen take the rest of
the country in these transitory times.
Is it not worth while for us t get a
strong grip on the young people who are
so soon to be leader! If Christ thought
it worth while to give nearly, all of His
public ministry to the training of a few
disciples to be leaders, do we imagine
that it is not worth while for us to train
anybody! The denomination is yet
deeply tinged with that old Hardshell
notion, that if we be the elect, right
things will happen anyhow. Bight things
will happen, but not anyhow. They will
happen God's how, and we are fools, if
we do not see that God means for us U
train dUciples for usefulness.
It seems to me to bo perfectly mon
strous for us to sit down and tweedle our
thumbs and say we can not i each the vast
majority ol God's people for His service.
My own thinking leads me to believe that
this great effort to enlist train and direct
must be done through the State organi
zations In a way to strengthen them, and
by a concert of all the forces that move
and direct the denomination. It can be
done, and it, is the, biggest thing to be
undertaken. Somebody "Will say, if you
start out that way, you will have a fight.
All right, there are worse things than a
fight. - Death is one of them. Y There has
never been any substantial progress made
without a fight. The , fight only wakes
people up and gi ves a good chance for
education, and a denominational leader
ship which is afraid of a fight, ought to
make an assignment of all of its interests
to the Sadducees, and let things be hur
ried in a grave whence there is no resur
rection; for it will come to that sooner or
later, at a peaceable assignment Is bet
ter than a slow death. I pray God we
may be wise enough to take counsel of
Him and not of our fears, nor of those
whose narrow spiritual vision d it qualifies
them to advise.
The South, long shut off, has come to
a time of great rsponsibility. I wish we
may all face the columns outward. We
baveciood too long already on the de
fensive; Christianity wins by aggres-!
sion. " In our neighborhoods, . we have
wonVby aggression. We have had an
aggression against heresy, and have won,
in spite of an enormous amount of fool
ishness with it. But as to the wide'world,
there has been far too little aggression. I
believe it ought to be in the thoughts of
our people now to follow Carey's great
text, enlarge the place of our habitation,
lengthen the cords and strengthen the
stakes. Our Northern brethren have
helped us in time of need. I am glad of
it. t have never sympathized with the
policy that wou'd shut people out of the
country- ith anything that Is gooc"re
ligiously. I do not believe in ' any; hard
and fast lines. Y If our Northern brethren
think there are good places in the South
to preacn, tnd it is on their consciences
to preach, all right. I greatly admire
their expansive feelings, and covet the
same for my own section. We ought to
g"out on this great movement. The
ome Board ought to have $500,000 a
year and the Foreign Board as much. We
are able to give it, aid our missionaries
ought to flock by scores and hundreds to
every part of the " world. If the right
thing is undertaken and is pushed, it will
enrich and greaten every Baptist enter
prise in all the land, and more than that,
it will enlarge our own people if they
shall come to feel that God has called
them to do great things for Him. We are
no longer ; poor folks. We are rich in
people, rich in opportunities, and rich in
money. The only poverty we have ia
the poverty of purposes equal to our
responsibilities,-
Dallas, Texas.
Help My Unbelief."
My spirit fails me; my sins have taken
hold upon me so that I am unable to look
up. My life rises in testimony against
me. " All these years tell ef wasted op
portunities, of misused powers of multi
plied sins, and I ran not answer them.
Their charges frighten me. What might
have ! been I How often better service
might have been rendered t Hovr often
duty has been neglected, and responsi
bilities have been evaded U All the time
there has been the kindnef s and patience
of God, the gracious evidence t f His love,
and the hand extended to help; a patience
so great that it can not be comprehended,
a love so wonderful that it overwhelms
me with shame. These years laid in the
balance are lighter than vanity. Wlen
I look' within, shame and confusion of
face cover me. When I Eee the secret of
failure, ' Conscience brings its accusa
tions and consciousness confesses guilt.
When I look up, fear takes hold cf me.
"In Thy sight shall no rcan living be
justified:" and my heart sinks. In the
light of that holiness, behold, I am vile.
The thought of the holy God is over
whelming, crushing. The soul shrinks
and would hide itself, but all refuge fails:
there is net any place beyond the eye or
God.
There is no help of man. The disciples
can not speak the word of deliverance;'
the churclr can not forgive sin; no man
can lift the burden from the soul. - When
the crushing senee of tin comes, how cne
looks around for fcelpl Have not these
felt the burden! Have they not known
the misery I Can they not give some
help! They can tell of their own expe
rience, but they can not deliver, for they
cam not forgive sins; they can not make
atenememt for giilt. The depths seem
only the deeper because of the powerless
ness of others to lift one out from them.
Then how Intense the desire for God
becomes I There Is ; the deep sense of
need, but there is more. The cry is more
than cne for help; the heart is desolate,
for it longs for God. "My soul thirsteth
after Thee, as a thirsty land ;'L?4My flesh,
longeth for Thee In a dry and thirsty
land, to see Thy power and Tby glory."
But can it be! Will He reveal Hinutlf !
Will He give deliverance ! Will he cast
out the evil spirit! ' '-' -
Here faith fears and trembles and yet
it grasps the word of grace. Human
weakness turns to God and lays hold of
alMighty power; the human heart ap-
Seals te the divine.' Out of the depth of
espair, out of the agony of the sense of
tin, with fear and hope, the sufferer cries:
'If Thou canst do anything, have com
passion and help." There U unconscious
ness of weakness and un worthiness, there
is the feeling of great things possible, of
something more than can be compre
hended, a belief that salvation is near,
but alse apprehension lest it be beyond
us, as if what we ask is too much to be
possible; and out of the tumult cf hope
and fear, the soul cries: "Lord, I be
lieve; help Thou mine unbelief." "I bo
seech Thee, deliver my soul,' :
h "Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for
the Lord bath dealt bountifully with
thee. For Thou haft delivered layex-i l
from 'death, mine eyes from tars, er!
my feet from falling.' Tho Fml-jt
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KYTo do an "evil .'action ia br?; to '';,
geod action without incur rir- f
common enough; but it U tl. ?
good man to do great csJ i
.though he risks evcrytiir j.