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s .''.1 ait Ill-''"- For the Advocate. Our Virginia Correspondence. ,;Y KI V. JOHN K. KDWAUDS, D. I). I . K X T I : X S i: KVICKS. li ::s stated in my presence the oth that a young lady was heard 'v,. -.nhiting hcvolt" on t he near ap ! v vT. !; Kater Sunday, and the close V ( I (';.t as observed by the church in '''"fU- was a communicant. She . V l -at he had abstained from pas-ki- ).'. a rich diet until she was tired V iiv limited bill of fare; but. more ','.r.';; ;!; she had been restrained from .t'Ut the theatre, and opera, and ''uVr- "parties until she was sick and frcil i 'Ft lie restriction laid upon her by he 1 eaten season. She nevertheless -ecu: 1 to foci that there was some ,vn ;iat:Hi tor her self-denial in the - 't ;' it a rni(in. which was to come C---"':v.z the week following Easter via iv. which would be enjoyed with a iw'ie 'relish by reason of the "forty j-n's" restraint from the delighful imii-finont now in store for her. This V. ec--rded with sincere sorrow and re rct. and with no purpose whatever to "ist any reflection upon the church within w:hoe pale this humiliating in iVat occurred. But, we have all hoard of Lenten Balls, and of the cngage :uoiii ofOperat roupes,-md of theatrical Ivmpauh.. expected to make their ap pearance immediately after the close of Lent, to meet a demand created by the ;om;warv restraint imposed on church aiombers' during the Lenten season. 0 hame, where is thy blush I" I re--.e;U that this is recorded with sorrow. The blame is not laid altogether at the ,loer :' the rectors bishops and oth er cA-mv." oi the church within whose oinniuniua these abuses occur. Faith t .Jprtati".i and warnings have deliver, d during the Lenten ser vices against .-uch indulgences ; and wi. :.i r.tte- disregard of these ndmoni-iicn-a: ! warnings; and, as it would eem. in defiance of church discipline and authority, the young and gay plea sure seekers, go from the communian on Faster Sanday. and not a few from what 1- called -'"the Apostolic rite of conf.vmr.tion. into tin ball room, and into lacivious Gtrman waltz, and into the reekinu theatre before the lirst umhv liter Faster. Tell it not in (Tilth .'" It wou'd seem too incredible d i li-h. and et the facts eonfirma torv ..: what ha been said above, have alrea : actually occurred in most of the town-and cities where the Lenten ser vices have been observed. Reprisals are thu made, by professed Christians, for t:.- religious -self-denial pr-diced in the o-w rvance of Lent. Bishop Ran dolph. aistant Bishop of the diocese Virginia, refused, last year, so I was credibly informed, to lay his hands, in the rite of confirmation, on any candi date? who would not promise, in ad vance, to abstain from the German waltz. ; nd other "round dances,- as they Me calied. But, it is a notoiious tact that a irreat many who are con 'xi "a-, as observers of Lent, are tui.t't ,.t the theatie. and at the Ger ata;.. participating in its performances, -tt e ,l:: w: ek has elapsed after the h ' t Lei.t. No wonder that our re . made a subject of mockery and dorxoa by mon of the world, in the ice . : -;i:h inconistencv ! No wonder c e : "- .; : t the church ! It is, to my : li'iii.i. a matter of surprise that the ..f worhilv ideasure should vil. '.V ' t ' - v;t; ' tak-'-" vsire to connect themselves ii rch of (Joel, or to remain paie. when the vows they t!ii and contirmation so I f;, 'y c.;,d !jitively involve a prohi s:l:,;'i Mi'- indulgence in the wordly ataa--;n. -a. to wliicli thy resort, with ;lvi,;"y. a o.-n as the Faster services ui I ! hat sort of a religion is !::: mo ci'UivmPii : m tliC the atre than in the self-deny- rr ::,.: (f (;0,f? A W I ; It - ''ttl VIKW Oi-' Till-: SLTIIJKCT. "lordly to be apprehended that h oi the reliiou of the present !h'r churches than those that L( ::t.'i services, is slack-twist-ll our denominations there are i - at - who, if they do not par ti; the German waltz, and at balls, and the theatre, are apologists for these amuse-'''-d lend their countenance to 'iences on the part of church rdothers allow their daught ;:!ira're in the German, and to a theatre mothers anddaugh church members who know indulgences are in violation covenant engagement to con : the moral discipline of the uch latitude of indulgence is : i av r.A I: '-oniaiu: t-iciiate tv . ""'-li . KVllll!;.' ', :; r . . i u,'a:- '''fill 1 1 chun-i, ,L y violative of their solemn vows. Jul -i'iely ; t;a v taiti'-i '!e ';hun:! ".tractive of personal, heart-felt while it, at the same time, ut-:;-'alyzes all healthful religious "-. and gives occasion to the out 'add to mock and deride the i,y'' its palpable inconsistency, ''put in the plea that those 'iited recusants do not know y are vioiating church order una dj,. r,i, lue. T hev do know it. and itaatady persist in doing what they ov f) .it j.j positive disregard of their 'Oauitar 1 V ns!imi'l liMntUmnl VOWS. co'i 'v (;ir K)1l''lni1 pledge and promis? to c,U.';!n .t0 tne requirements of the n rJ,!( x .,elaliii to worldly amuse jfV1 1 1ns is unquestionably true in pneation to members of the Meth- liavp 1 1ls:copal cliurch' South, who e t)(.f;u received into its communion cW .?ln.t0 lhe prescribed form in the ritual. Such indulgences fall iuto tl ie category of " imprudent con duct, or, of " disobedience to (lie order and discipline oi the church," and sub verts the offender to private reproof" by the pastor. Persistence in such in dulgences, after reproof, becomes con tumacy, which subjects the olfender to trial for immorality.' HOW IT IS THAT M'OIILDLINESS CKKKPS INTO Tin: cnuiicir. The growth and increase of worldli ness in the church, and especially in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is attributable, in greatmeasure. to two things; namely, first, to shallow, sur face conversions ; and, secondly, to the loose, slipshod mode of receiving mem bers into the church. Too many of the rambling, irresponsible evainjvlistn, so call ed, who lower the conditions of Scriptural conversion to a plain, but little above the dead level of an avowed purpose to reform the life, with a publicly declar ed willingness to 4' accept Christ" as the Savior of sinners, are chargeable, in part, with the evils complained of. The physical fact of " standing up in the congregation," or, of coming for ward and " shaking hands' with the evangelist, is pronounced conversion, and another notch is made in the tally stick, in the numerical count of the con verts. In two manj instances the go ing through with this drill is called conversion, and the persons men and women so converted, are received in to the church, too many of whom are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. " They started right,, and took steps in the proper di rection, as the initiative of a religious life, but stopped short of the great work of spiritual regeneration by the direct energy and power of the Holy Ghost. There may have been an in tellectual assent to the truths present ed to the mind, and a ratioml accept ance ot them as great and vital truths ; but, the moral element of unreserved and unconditional trust in Jesus Christ alone, for a present forgiveness of sins, and for a consicously felt, and a divinely attested renewal by the Iloty Ghost was lacking. The word of the evange list was taken, rather than the direct witness of the II0I3 Spirit. The con vert, by the new process, turns out, in too many instances, to be the " stony ground" hearer. The seed springs up, and makes a show ; but, for want of depth of soil, only abides for a short time, and then withers and dies away. Such converts crowd our churches with half-hearted, worldty, dancing, theatre going members. SOMETHING FURTHER. Thorough repentance, involving con viction for sin, confession of sin, con trition on account of sin, a forsaking and turning away from sin repentance, as thus described, goes before saving faith. That false, absurd, and unscrip tural view that saving faith goes before evangelical repentance must receive no countenance or quarters among us, as Methodists. If we catch the hoary old error in our camp, wTe must put it to the knife. It contradicts our avowed doctrinal beliefs ; stands with uplifted hand in the face of our preaching, and the traditions of our church, and inverts the order of repentance and faith, as taught in God's word ; as preached by Wesley and his successors in the min istry, and as held and believed by the Methodists of to-day, as firmly and un waveringly as it has ever been held by the old file leaders in our Israel in the days of by-gone years. Repentance, faith, justification, regeneration, adoption, and the witness of the Spirit. These are the old battering-rams with which the Methodists, through all periods of their history, have beaten down the walls of opposition and docrinal error wherever the- have bern encountered, in the progress of our church, from its feeble infancy to its preseut gigantic strermth and maturity. It is no time now, at this advanced stage of our pro gress, to surrender cur doctrines to the dictation of men, often of very moder ate ability, called evengelists. The re vivals that attend our own ministry pastor assisting pastor where the eld " altar work" is kept up, and where deep and thorough repentance is preach ed, and insisted on, and where the peni tent is taught to expect conscious con version, divinely attested, always result in the most permanent good to the church. Shallow, surface conversions, I repeat, are filling our churches with worldly members. Then, the careless, off-hand way of too many of our pastors, of receiving members into the com munion of the church, without previous, nnvsn-Hi examination, as 10 fineness of their faith," and their 'will ingness to conform to the moral discip line of the church, and to support its institutions,' tends to foster the in crease and growth of the evils that just row arc assuming a dominating mtlu ence, in more branches of the Christian Church than those that keep Lent. THINGS BY THE WAY. Kev. IL W. Brown, the evangelist, -fter closing his meetings at the First IJautist Church in Lynchburg, returned to Richmond, where he has held a meet-ino-oftwo week's continuance 111 toe Centenary Methodist Church, attended with the usual results. Large numbers are reported as converts, but without corresponding accessions to the church es Just now Mr. Brown is beginning n meeting with Dr. Landrum, at the Second baptist Church, in Richmond, where he will spend two weeks, after w iich he is under an engagement to come to Danville, to spend two or three weeks with Dr. Starr, in the conduct of a meetin- in Main Street Methodist RALEIGH, N. C., WEDNESDAY, MAY Church. Mr. B in Danville earlier, but bv consent of parties all round his visit has been de terred two weeks. We are praying and hoping for good results to attend the meeting. The proper authorities are forecasting for the new organiza tion m carrying on, without interrup tion, the exercises of the " Danville College for young ladies." A full corps of officers and teachers will be ready, m due time, to keep up the institution to its high grade. The death of Prof. Blackwell is keenly felt, but will not interfere with the continuance of the College exercises, either at the present or m the future. Rev. II. C. Cheat ham, of Centenary Methodist Church m Lynchburg, has been engaged to preach the Commencement sermon, on the 5 th Sunday in May. The usual annual exercises will come oft during the week following the sermon. Prof. Buchanan, Superintendent Qf public school instruction in Ya., will deliver the annual literary address before the Pierian Literary Society of the College, on Tuesday night, following the ser mon. Danville, Va., April 20th, 1887. Fcr the Advocate. Tlie Rambler. That is a charming criticism of "Mary Wilson" on the Rambler's view of sing ingonly the Rambler has been very much misunderstood. There is noth ing on earth the matter with " Heaven ward March," and nobody is distressed to see "Jesus Lovei of My Soul" oc casionally in e very-day clothes, but a harmless march is not a holy march, and to sensitive spirits everr-day cloth es look a little rusty Sundays. A sweet singer might render " Charles Wesley's fine hymn" to " When the Swallows Homeward fhy," and think of holy things, but somebody wrill be thinking of the swallows ugly and black and noisy. And the dear girl who feels her spirit soaring beyond the clouds while entertaining the boj s writh Heavenward March will be shocked when she turns around to find that she has been furnish ing muic for a drill on mamma's new carpet. Hearts like harps may be tuned to different ke's. I repeat, there is nothing the matter with Heavenward March on Mondays. What was complained of wras the spirit which usually controls the music at these Sunday afternoon " sociables." Won't Miss Angeline be kind enough to play something ? Miss Angeline has alwars been very kind and there is no reason why she should not be so now : she will plar. But what shall it be ? Boys don't like church tunes they are too solemn. Sankey is lively, but San key is worn threadbare. And there isn't another thing in the parlor save a pile of every-day music on the end of the piano. The young man who has been fingering with that pile for the last five minutes, and now comes for ward with his " favorite," is warned in a half whisper that mamma is in the next roora, and mamma is one of the old-fashioned sort, you know. There is a pause. TI13 man who can relieve them of this dilemma shall be called blessed. The author of Heavenward March gets the blessing. Here is a secular tune that will satisfy the boys. And it has a religious label that will pacify mamma. And it is just so with Jesus Lover of My Soul to a, " selection from the latest opera." The boys want the. opera and mamma wants the words : both will get what they want, and the divine performer thanks her stars that she is easily out of the dilemma. The Rambler is so far from being old fashioned in his musical tastes that he ca.i with difficulty hold himself down to the level of ministerial notions. He loves operatic music ; at the concert nobody laughs and cries more and no body's neighbor gets pinched oftener. The finest music sounds, to the bottom depths in his heart which popular airs never reach, And j-et the Rambler would not have operatic music intro duced into the churches. For his own sake he would have it and for the sake of those who are constructed on the same-plan. But the "hog and hom iny" taste abounds, and you can't satis fy a " hog and hominy" appetite with white of eig or anything that looks like it. Plain, subtantial tunes for every-day, substantial people is the motto for to-day and forever. We operatic folks are of no Letter fiber than the man who -can't turn Old Hundred. Hog and hominy people will sing as gratidly up yonder as their white-of-egg neighbors. Bnt there, are extremes to keep clear of. It is wise to keep away from the Xorth pole for many reasons. The preacher, who wrote to the Xashvile Advocate that he loved our church hymns so well he was determined to introduce them into the Sunday-school, has sway ed from one pole to the other. Church tunes for children ! Might as well send a Brushy Mountain moonshiner to hear patti. Tie a bright, nervous, happy child down to a slow, melancholy hymn and you bandage him like a papoose. The pale little girl, who mopes about the house humming Xaomi, is going to heaven if a physician is not called in. Children who sing hymns of their own accord may be suspected of eating dirt of thsir own accord. Let us have no poky, nodding hymns in our Sunday school. Give the children a song that ( is in tune with their hearts ; something they can take up quickly and run through lik lightning and send them hack to their seats all flushed and happy. The wise mother sings a hymn to her child only wThen she would put it to sleep. Edward L. Pell. For the Advocate. Our New York tetter. BY JOSEPH S. TAYLOR. The fate of high license for Xew York and Brooklyn is sealed. By writing the little word " No," Governor Hill has put himself on the rum side of the con test. His prattle about " sumptuar' legislation" and the "Constitution" is simply a blind for certain 'supposed simple-minded individuals who believe in Andrew Jackson, but also in sobrie ty. Their votes in a certain contin gency may be needed ; and so an effort has been made to show that a good cause has been defeated by being em bodied in a bad law. Nevertheless, the simplicity and innocence of common intelligence which has been assumed for these temperance men seem to have been slightly overestimated by our sag acious Governor, for a scheme is on foot to entangle His Excellency in the meshes of his own logic. He has point ed out certain objections to the b 11 which was passed b' the Legislature, leaving the way open, for the inference that what he has not formally disap proved he tacitly approves. Conse quently, the friends of the defuuet high license bill have already introduced a new measure devoid of every feature which Mr. Hill objected to, and em bodying such portions as were approv ed. If this reaches him, he can not help signing it or stultifying himself. The veto, besides disappointing tem perance men, deprives the city of $4, 500,000 of revenue. This may, or may not be an evil; for, aslougas rum pays the taxes, avaricious men Avill stick to rum. 44 All but philosophers," says Plato (Phaedo), " are courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid. And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate be cause they are intemperate. Eor there are Measures which they must have, iimfe 'afraid of losing; and therefoie they abstain from one class of pleasures because they are overcome by anoth er." This is the danger of the license sys tem. The more you tax rum, the deep er the saloon system becomes rooted in the avarice of men. Every man who votes for high license is called and calls himself a temperance man. But we fear many of these are temperate by being intemperate. They are "temperance" men because they are intemperate m their love of money. A paragrapher in Harper'1 s Bazar said last week that Dr. Hall's great suc cess as a preacher lies in the fact that he always tc rites his apparently extempor aneous sermons. One need not be a sermon architect to inform this philosopher that he is very un philosophical. If I should sa', "This fire is hot because it is in a stove," I would be speaking after the manner of the paragraher. If Dr. Hall is great because of something which he does, then he simply obeys the law of greatness ; and since it is a law, it is general and not particular : therefore, if other men obey this law, they, too, will be great. Or, substituting the words of Harper'' s philosopher, all who write their sermons are great preachers. Would they were indeed ! Now, no man is great because he does anything in a particular way. To saj7 that he does is to substitute the accidental for the essential, or the ef fect for the cause. No one is great be cause he does anything : he is great be cause he is great. And for him the do ing of great deeds is just as natural and as easy as the doing of small things is to ordinary men. A great man knows and obeys the law of his nature ; if he does not, he can not be great. And if that law impels a preacher to write sermons, he must write them; if it im pels him to preach extemporaneoush, he must preach extemporaneous1-. I devote a little space to this subject because the spirit of the teaching in schools and colleges appears to be that if one will only do what great men did, he will be great ; whereas imitation is the infallible test, perhaps the essence, of smallness. "He is great who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others." So says Emer son. Young people ought to be encourag ed to discover their own natures, to know themselves, so that they shall not attempt to fire 42-calibre balls with a 32-calibre weapon. The vioht is such not because it is blue, but it is blue and modest because it is a violet. It is beautiful because it is the nature of violets to be beautiful. If we were involuntary creatures like the flowers of the field', we should each of us grow according to our natures into intellectu al lilies or oaks, and into moral violets or sunflowers. But wre have will ; and wre are sinful ; and by our sinful wills we thwart nature in her efforts to build us up in the likeness oi our Maker, but for whose mercy we should all be cut down as weeds and cast into the fur nace. Rev. Dr. Parker, of London, has 4, 1387. been mentioned as Mr. Beecher's prob able successor in the Plymouth pulpit. He has accepted an invitation to deliver the memorial oration at a proposed public meeting in commemoration of the great preacher. Those who have been in the habit of hearing Mr. Beech er will be disappointed. I fear, no mat ter who may occupy Plymouth pulpit. Beecher was a man who reminded one of no one else;consequentl- no one else re minds one of him. lie was as unique as Shakespeare. Let most men an nounce a subject, and you know pretty nearly what they are going to say. You can think through their brains. But no man could make himself at home in Beecher's brain. He was always full of surprises to the keenest of listeners. And the effect of this indescribable and incomprehensible power upon some of his regular hearers was so great that it induced a sort of Beechermania. I saw a man in the gallery of the church one Sunday movning, who acted during the sermon as if he had hold of an induc tion battery. He fairly trembled un der the terrific spell. And he told me he had sat in that same spot foi twenty years. If Dr. Parker comes, I fear this man will commit suicide ! Our Mayor is a party to a measure which lias been reported in the Legis lature, permitting the saloons to be op en on Sunday until 12 o'clock. Mayor Hewitt is the son-in-law of Peter Coop er, one of New York's uncauonized saints ; he is a church member ; he is the head of Cooper Union, an institu tion that educates a thousand young men and women every year in the arts and sciences. Yet this Mayor has al lowed his name to be connected with a measure that would command the sup port of thieves and murderers and the dregs of society generally, and would outrage every sense of decency and every obligation of Christian morality. AH classes of citizens have respect for the Mayor and confidence in his integri ty. They can only say in charity that the Mayor must be under a de lusion, if indeed he is not, the dupe of the liquor power. Easter in New York is the prettiest, sweetest Easter ! It is a festival of flowers. All the churches have flowers 111 profusion, flowers, beautiful emblems of the resurrection and of immortality 1 They are the most convincing argument the pantheist- has. -Their influence seems divine. In their power of in spiring devotional feelings they go hand in hand with music. By ihe way, it is much easier to be a prohibitionist in theory than in prac tice. In truth, it is very inconvenient to be a prohibitionist in practie. One must be proof against failure, and ridi cule, and public denunciation. Prohi bitionist are often represented as a milk-and-water sort of men wearing long hair. The fact is, it takes a fixed ness of purpose and a persistence of moral energy quite foreign to the sim pering virtue of the imbeciles that are held up to public scorn as specimen prohibitionists. No, gentlemen; it takes a hero now-a-days to be a prohi bitionist. Miss Catharine C. Wolfe, lately de ceased, belonged to that species of noble philanthropists which, for the sake of Christianity and the needy, we hope may never become extinct. With an ample fortune which descended to her from both branches of her family, she enrly began to follow thefoosteps of her dead father, who had taken delight in ministering to the necessities of the poor. Not as property, but as a trust, Miss Wolfe regarded her wealth. She used it accordingly. Money is a good or evil ; and whether it is to be one or the other depends upon the wisdom or folly of those who use it. "If I had that man's fortune I would do thus and so," you say. Would you? Why, al most anybody can make money, but how fewr there be who know how to spend it ! Miss Wolfe knew the divine fine art of spending money, not for gratification, but as one who felt that she carried the keys of power that be longed to another. The death of Ray Palmer, in Newark, on March 29th, reminds the Christian world of the debt it owes to that great scholar and hymn-writer. In 1830, when he was twenty-two years old, and just after he had graduated at Yale College, he -wrote the hymn My Faith Looks vj) to Thee, which alone would entitle its author, to immortality. I have before me an illustrated edition of that hymn containing a facsimile of the first twro stanzas from the first complete manuscript copy. It is a smalls delicate hand, full of character. It is nearly sixty years since the com position of this lyric, and after a long and fruitful life the author died in that 44 faith" of which he sang so sweetly. Who doubts that this prayer, the con cluding stanza of the hymn, lias been answered in tlie death of Ray Palm er? " When ends life's transient dream, When death's cold sullen stream Shall o'er me roll ; Blest Savior, then, in love, Fear and distrust remove; Ob, hear me safe above A ransomed soul !" I must confess that "The Rambler's" article in the last Advocate has given me no little pleasure and relief. When 82.00 PER Ai:M Iaysille in Advance Brother Smith's unkind letter on Beech er appeared, I was sorely templed to reply ; but I had enough self control that time to suppress everything that struggled for utterance on thai topic. I considered it a triumph of grace that I had been able to write a Raleigh let ter without using the name of Beecher or Smith. If that letter of Bro. S. had remauied unchallenged, I had determin ed to take it as the opinion of the readers of the Advocate ; and who am I that I should antagonize what seemed to me the feeling of a community, rather than a judgment ; and that not on the merits of the man, but on his relation to a cer tain question ? Mr. Pell has revived my courage. I shall say a few words, not to answer Bro. S., particularly, for whose writ ings generally I have the very greatest respect, and often admiration. When I read that Mr. Beecher " has done more harm to Evangelical Chris tianity than any man of his age," In gersoll excepted, I said to myself, " Howr can an5r man who has evr rrad or heard a single sermon of Mr. Wc tell er make such a statement?" And when it was further asserted that he had de graded the divinity of Christ, I came to the conclusion that Bro. S. never ould have read a prayer or sermon that emanated from Plymouth pulpit. For the above and other statements are simply not true ! When Bro. S. asks, what permanent work has Mr. Beecher done ? we are al most tempted to suggest that the ans wer is .near at hand; for a prut of Beecher's work was also Gen. Grant's and Pres. Lincoln's. Perhaps Georgia is as well qualified as any other State to attest the permanency of this part of Beecher's work. As to Mr. Beecher's character, Mr. William A. Beach was the leading counsel of the pi an tiff in the great trial. He declared before he died that, after hearing Mr. Beecher's own defcree, he believed him innocent. " I felt," s.. id he, 44 that we were a pack of hounds frying in vain to drag down a noble lion." Bro. S. is hardly imitating the example of the One who said : " He that is with out sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." As to his orthodoxy. "Great be lievers are always reckoned infidels But he denies out of more faith, and not less. He denies out of honesty. He had rather stand charged with the imbecility of skepticism ; than with untruth." Thus gays Emereoii. And one would think the philosopher must have had Henry Ward Beecher in mind when he wrote this passage. His own personal experience, however, is described by the observation. He had been ordained to preach dogmas which his expanding thought soon outgrew, and he was compelled to resign his of fice to save his self-respect. But he wrote the words we have quoted of Montaigne. " Great believers are always reckon ed infidels.' Did any man ever, after reading " Wilhelm Meister," ask 1o what church Goe'he belonged? Or did any student of Hamlet ever wonder whether Shakespeare was a Papist or Protestant? Such questions woi.' i be ridiculous. And yet none but a ; n.all mind would accuse either Goethe or Shakespeare of skepticism. So com manding are their intellects, so univer sal is their genius, that Goethe-, ns a Baptist and Shakespeare as a Presbyterian are inconceivable So was Mr. Beecher too large or the creeds. Yet he was a " great bdii " ccr" ten times greater then any to;-; li.tve called him "infidel," "atheist,' skep tic." lie was too honest to r.".y, "I am a Congiegationalist, when 1c knew that Congregationalism could not hold a millionth part of him. It would be as if the lion should say " I am an oyst er," or the eagle, " I am a due'--." Nevertheless when Mr. Beecher with drew from the Congregational body, declaring honestly that he vasnot what every intelligent man knew he could not be, there were not wantincr those who cried " Pity !" " Shame !" " Atheist!" " Hypocrite." Km? Vorl;' April 22nd, 187, . e SSsort SeJectfon. " One drop of sympathy sincere, A lake of tears may cairn ; 'Tis oil upon the troubled wave:-, Pour, pour, the precious bniri.r Learn to govern yourselves, and be gentle and patient. jrLRemember that, valuable as Is the gift speech, silence is often more valu able. Beloved, God meets those v.-lip arc in the way ; Satan meets those who are out of it. Jfariugton AY :.;.. Guard your tongues, especially in seasons of ill-heaith, irritation, r.nd trouble, and soften them by prayer and a sense of your own shortcoming:' cud errors. Let the minister sent of Chri.-t, de livering Christ's message to hisftd'ows, have good courage. Let those who re ceive "him with his message Lave like good courage. Receiving the messeng er of Christ, with tlie message of Chi lit, he has received Christ himself. cm Churchman. The faith that brings us into the " valley of blessings so sweet," comes out of a furnace of desire, glowing with sevenfold ardor. It is not in harmony with the nature of the human sensibili ties that this intensity of desire should be awakened and sustained in a state of passivity. Endeavor intensifies desire Love Enthroned.
North Carolina Christian Advocate (Greensboro, N.C.)
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May 4, 1887, edition 1
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