RALEIGH, N. C, WEDNESDAY, APRIL I. 1903. JOSIAH WILLIAM BAILEY, Editor. THE STRUOOLE WITH SIN.' If the people who claim that they have reached a point of sinlessness are correct in their claims, . they are much to he congratulated. There is no terror in this life like the terror of sin- There is no depression so horrible as that that comes of knowing that one cannot resist temptation. There is nothing so pitiful as the conflict in the human heart as to which of two ways it will take, the good or the evil. Nothing could be sweeter than to feel that one has at last broken the bonds of sin and is free. If thij writer un- , derstands anything at all, it is this, that sin is the one affliction of life, that the one burden and sorrow of the heart is sin, that the one dominant struggle that rends the soul is the struggle with sin. There are disappointments, of course. Hearts' dearest wishes are denied. Fond plans fail, and sweet hopes are rudely broken. But these are nothing when weighed in the balance with sin. There is a heaviness of spirit that falls upon the best of us now and then. Friends seem not friends; life is not life; there is no joy in the open fields, no peace in the far away, no satisfac tion in one's work. But this heaviness is as a shadow compared with the black pit of sin per ceived in one's own soul. And death itself robs every heart, and the grief over the still form of a loved one, passes all power to describe. But yet more grievous is the lot of him who knows that he has sinned and knows that temptation will return yet again and find some strange and subtle response in his soul. Sin 13 the supreme affliction. It is not only the Toot ot bur life's sorrows; but it "is Ihe chief est of them. It alone is so enormous as to require the sacrifice of the Son of God. How unworthy of man is sin. He who stands upright must crawl in the dust He who has the hope of good must make company of evil. He who knows the right must dally with wrong. In all the annals of philosophy there is no paradox like this. We are so fair within in our better moments, so exalted in our inmost souls, and so dark nnd base in a moment's time. We who love our fellows treat them with bitterness; who so de sire honor stoop to dishonor; who so love love woo the spirit of hate. But the more grievous burden of the conflict is not here not even here. It is when a man contemplates the Source of his be ing, when he reckons with Ilim from whose bosom he came; when a man stands as we every one stand this hour before the all-knowing and the Holy Judge; and worse, yet, when one stands be fore that Judge and understands how He has loved, how He has suffered, how He has died for him; it i9 at such a time that the terror of the chasm that sin has set between him and his high er self, that the horror of the blackness of his heart appears in indescribable proportions. The burden would bear any one to the earth . but for ., the hope that he has in the Sin-bearer, in Him who taketh away the sin of the world. Had Christ not come the race must have long ago despaired. We who cannot find the perfected joy of sinlessness, can find joy nevertheless in the peace of Him who redeems us from our sins. ' But by this very mark we will strive to be sin less. One will not sin that grace may abound. To such a one, grace will not abound, but con demnation. An overwhelming assurance in the forgiveness of God is assurance of nothing so much as that the man so assured is deeply ignor ant of God . and himself and is under condemna tion We will not sin because grace doth abound. . , But" by theTvery" f actof "rec6giiizingTtetg we will strive the more against sin. We have a" Sin-bearer, but His purpose is to make us holy as well as to redeem us from the bondage of sin. And he will arm us for the conflict. He will strengthen us in the struggle with the Tempter. And He will give us victory, He is one who un derstands the conflict in every detail. He has been through the battle. He knows us. And He is able to keep us. Who shall separate us, then, from Him f Remember Paul's exulting defiance to the powers of evil. Nothing can suffice to separate God from us. But in a moment the least things can separate us from God. The sun shines for every creature, and hot the greatest mountain or the mightest storm, neither life nor death can separate the sun from the smallest insect. But the insect may separate itself from the sun with a leaf. Nothing can separate God from His child nothing but the child, who, by a sin, in a little matter or a great one, can stretch a chasm wide and dark and deep beyond plummet's sounding. He is able to keep us, if we will that He shall. Our danger is not in prin cipalities and powers, not in life nor death, but in ourselves. In the struggle with sin there is no refuge save in constant closeness to Jesus Christ. The moment one forgets His presence, that moment his security is gone. THE BRIQHTENINQ DAYS. The old, old wonder of the lengthening days Is with us once again; the winter's sun, Slow sinking to the west when day is done, Each eve a little longer with us stays, And cheers the snowy landscape with his rays. Nor do we notice what he has begun - - - Until a month or more of days have run, When he exclaims, "How long the light de lays!" So let some kindly deed, however slight, Be daily done by us, Till we feel the night Is less within our souls, and broader spaced Has grown the cheerful sunshine of the heart. WILL STEER CLEAR OP OKEFINOKEE. The Biblical Recorder, whose editor is becom ing more and more of a crusty old bachelor, has the following: "The Dallas, Texas, women who asked Mrs. Roosevelt for a gift to sell and then refused to accept her gift of a handkerchief because it was not an expensive one, may be ladies, but they evidently do not know the rules. They disgraced the women of the South." There is a world of injustice in this criticism. The handkerchief was accepted, and it brought the largest revenue of anything in the bazar. The Dallas women, dear Bailey, are the brightest, most considerate and queenliest of their sex. True, some of them criticised the fabric that came from Washington, but the entire matter was dis-" torted ; by prurient sensation-mongers who, by some strange abnormality, have secured positions vas press reporters. 'After printing the foregoing unjust and ungallant paragraph, Editor J. W. Bailey is warned never to come nearer to Dallas than the Okefinokee Swamp. Texas Baptist Standard. SHALL WE BAPTISTS DO LIKEWISE? North Carolina sends greetings to the Synods of Iowa and -Wisconsin. Each has resolved not to depend upon the Home Mission Board any longer, , but to do all its own work, and Iowa is going to raise $18,000 a year (almost up to the North Carolina Standard) and Wisconsin is go ing to .raise $13,000, which the Interior says is about a, dollar a member. We are surprised to learn that1 there are only 13,000 Presbyterians Lin. Wisconsin,"' but .w&'suppose that .the. State. iaJ , still more, noted for its beer, than for its Presby-r terianism. Presbyterian Standard. ' VOLUME 68, NUMBER 39. ; LENT. " Is this a fast to keep - ,. . ... The larder lean And clean . - . Prom fat of veals and sheep? Is it to quit the dish Of flesh, yet still To fill The platter high with fish! Is it to f ast an hour Or ragg'd go, Or show A downcast look and sour? Not 'tis a fast to dole Thy sheaf of wheat And meat . . , Unto the hungry soul. ; J It is to fast from strife, From old debate And hate To circumcise thy life. To show a heart grief -rent; To starve thy sin. Not bin . -And that's to keep thy Lent. ' Robert Herrick. THE CHANGED CONDITIONS. There is a college president in North Carolina whose tongue never fails him. v His identity will be disclosed by a story that has recently been told of him. Having spoken at a certain place in his peculiarly enthusiastic strain of the need of industrial education, a young lawyer, none too harassed with clients, accosted him. "Doctor, do I' understand you 'to hold " that the one thing, the only thing, the whole thing for North Carolina boys now is to learn trades and practical industries?" Yes, sir. "But, doctor, do you know how I came to go to school and be come a lawyer ?" No. "Well, you came to this town a few years ago and made a speech just as you have to-day, save with even more enthusiasm. You told us that all that North Carolina needed was welle-ducated men, men. prepared to teach and preach, and practice law and medicine. You pointed to our industrial life, our farming, and declared that our one want was men of cul ture to lead us. And I was induced by your eloauence to go to school, leave the farm and be come a lawyer Now, you see, here I am, and according to you, Fve made a mistake. We all ought to be farmers and mechanics." But the doctor was not daunted. "Hold on, my dear sir, what I said a few years ago was all right. And what I have said to-day is all right. There is no- inconsistency. Too many of you fellows took my advice, and now I must move heaven and earth to get the farmers and 'me chanics able to support you. We shall reach a balance in a few years." And, heaven knows, we do need men who are cultivated, men of the highest Culture, and men who are skilled, men who are masters of land and machines; and happy shall be when these qualities shall be found in each man. For there is no reason why a farmer or an artisan should not have the same basis of culture as the preach er, or the lawyer or the doctor or the teacher; nor is there reason why teacher or preacher or lawyer should be ignorant of practical indus tries. That is not effective education that.ac-r quaints a man with the glow of letters only to blind him to the light of nature. . By the way, our, school debaters will find this a ; suggestive , theme 1 for discussionResolved, that '"there is more ; need in North Carolina of Industrial Training than Higher Education. ;