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?! ESTABLISHED 1844. RALEIGH, E. 0., THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1898. VOLUME LI: HUMBER 30. Christian SUr\ The Organ of the General Convention the Ghrletlan Church (South). CARDINAL PRINCIPLES. 1. The Lord Jeans 1* the onlj Bead of the church. 1 The name Christian, to the exclusion of all party and sectarian names. S. The Holy Bible, or the Scripture* of the Old and New Testaments, sufficient rule of faith and practice. 4. Christian character, or rital piety, the only test of fellowship or membership. 5. The right of private judgment, and the liberty of conscience, the privilege and duty of all. Reflections. There are 27,000 county pris ons and 55 penitentiaries in the U. S., and no less than 75 per cent of the inmates have testified that their downward path led through the dram shops of King Alcohol.—Exchange. Not long ago a number of col ored graduates, under the direc ' tion of the Atlanta University, made a personal investigation as to the condition of the colored people in the cities of Atjama, Baltimore, Charleston, Memphis, and Richmond. They find that the average death-rate among the whites in these cities, during the fifteen years ending in i&jS, was 21 per thousand; while among the colored, it was 36 per thousand—nearly 74 per cent greater among the negroes than among the whites. This they claim is due to the fact that an excessive number of colored women have to leave their chil dren during the day in order to help support their families—only one colored man in four support ing his family without assistance —and to their ignorance and disregard of the laws of health. Women might perhaps be said to belong to a more primitive type of humanity thap men. While men place an interval be tween thought and act, women are apt to follow feelings direct ly, in a half-instinctive way. In other words, while men, through reflection, base their actions on consciously recognized general principles, women are wont to respond emotionally to individ ual and concrete cases. This is the reason why the latter so of ten show more ready tact and intuition, more conservatism and conscientiousness, but less origi nality, than the former. This comes out curiously in school life. If, when a theme for an essay is set to a mixed class of young men and women, distinct direction be given as to form, method, and length, and the sources of information named, the young women win ao nest. If, on the contrary, no directions or references are given, and the pupils are left to shift for them selves, so that research and orig inality are called for, the young men will do best. I have often made this experiment. We may say, then, that, while men are best fitted for those occupations that call for reflection, original thought, and the discovery of new principles, women are best fitted for those that call for the ready application of old and well known principles. This is at tested in numerous ways by the facts of history. Women cling to old habits, customs, and fash ions—not to speak of supersti tions and religions—much long er than men ; while they rarely show themselves inventors, even in their own sphere of activity. The sewing-machine was the in vention of men; and so, no doubt, were the loom and the spinning-wheel. Men acquire and produce: women receive and preserve. And along with this mental difference goes a .physical difference. Men, as a rule, are larger, stronger, and more aggressive; women are finer, more tender, and more sympathetic. This, of course, implies no inferiority of one sex to the other. Both types of char acter are equally essential to so cial well-being.-—The Forum. Theoretically the ruler of Great Britain receives no compensa tion, but is entitled to what are known as the hereditary reve nues ot the crown, and they maxe a curious inventory. In early times almost everybody had to pay a “royalty” upon his earnings t$ his sovereign, hence the origin of that word which is in common use over the world to-day. In 1830, however, "Wil liam IV. made an arrangement with Parliament, which was con firmed by Queen Victoria upon her accession to the throne, un der which all of the hereditary revenues and the proceeds of the royal estates were surrender ed in exchange for a permanent allowance. It was a good trade on both sides. The legitimate revenues of the queen at the present day would largely ex ceed this sum, but on the other hand she is relieved entirely from responsibility and annoy ance, and knows exactly what she has to depend upon. The increase in values and royalties has been so great that if she re ceived the hereditary revenues she would be worth a great deal more money than she is to-day. She would have all confiscated estates, all the property of felons and outlaws, all wrecks, flotsam and jetsam, and all penalties and fines collected by the courts ; but the only rights of this kind that she retains are to the so-called “royal fish”, that is, any whales or sturgeons caught upon the codst of the United Kingdom. Thus, from the time that she was crowned, Queen Victoria has been in receipt of an income from the government amounting to about three million dollars a year. From this she pays all the expenses and salaries of her household, charities, pensions, and other charges imposed upon the sovereign, be they more or less. She has $300,000 per an num for pocket money, of which no account is ever asked. The salaries of her household amount! to about $600,000, and the other expenses to about $750,000 per year; $60,000 is given her tor “bounties and alms” and $96,000 for annuities and pensions. In addition to this the other mem bers of the royal family receive annuities amounting to $865, 000. From the duchy of Lan caster the queen receives about $450,000 a year, which she has no need to touch at all, and probably invests in bulk as fast as it comes to her. This income of itself, since she has been upon the throne, with interest, would aggregate $40,000,000. She has received several very large lega cies. In 1852 James Camden Nield bequeathed to Her Maj esty an estate amounting to about $4,000,000, which pays a large revenue. In 1877 Mr. C. M. Newhouse left her several hundred thousand dollars in his will, and she has received a number of other less valuable bequests from loyal subjects and admirers who have no direcl heirs. These bequests to the queen are more numerous than the public has knowledge of, and the utmost caution is exer cised regarding their acceptance, lest she may be involved in liti gation or notoriety. Several large estates have been declined in order to avoid contests in the courts with relatives who thought they were entitled to the money. A few years ago Her Majesty had a very narrow escape. An old Scotch bachelor bequeathed to her a fortune amounting to several hundred thousand pounds invested in the shares of a bank, which two or three years later failed with a tremendous crash and liabilities of nearly $60,000, 000. It was then disclosed that only fifteen per cent of the face value of the shares had been paid in, and the stockholders were immediately assessed eighty-five per cent of their nom inal holdings to meet the obliga tions of the institution. Had it not been for the caution and fore sight of Earl Sidney, Qjieen Vic toria would have accepted this legacy, and been the loser in stead of the gainer by several million dollars.—“The Richest Woman in the World,” by Wil liam Eleroy Curtis, in The Chautauquan for April. Contributions REUBEN, THE FIRST-BORN OF JACOB. BY HBRBKRT SCHOLZ, A.M. His mother was Leah, the hat ed wife of Jacob. His birthplace was somewhere on his Grand father Laban’s estate in Haran. The only event connected with his life that makes him worthy of any special notice is the tact that he was the oldest of Jacob’s children. There was a time when it was something great to be the oldest son of a rich man. The oldest son was everything in the eyes of the law, while the other children were of little con sequence. But in this age of progress and learning,the young est child is as important as the oldest, so tar as this quarter of the globe is concerned. Reuben followed his father’s profession, and passed his life in raising sheep and cattle. Reuben was with Jacob when Jacob took all his possessions and left his Un cle Laban to go back to the home of his boyhood. So far as we know, Reuben remained with his father all his life, or un til Jacob died. The only inci dent recorded in Reuben’s boy hood is the one in which he went into the fields and found some mandrakes and brought them to his mother, and at the request of Rachel, his mother gave the mandrakes to Rachel. Later on in life, he committed a nameless act which would have brought him under the curse of the Mo saic law, had that law been then in force. When he and his oth er nine brethren were far away from home, keeping their father’s sheep and living the lives of wan dering Arabs, Jacob sent the young boy Joseph to find them and to bring him word concern ing their welfare. Now all these brethren hated Joseph on account of some dreams which Joseph had made known, and also on account of some ill reports which he had delivered to his. father against them. On this particu lar occasion when they saw him coming they plotted among themselves to kill him, and doubtless would have carried out their plot, had it not been for Reuben. But Reuben felt too kindly an interest in the lad to permit such a crime to be com mitted without some attempt on his part to prevent it. Reuben was a good man at heart, and only his instability of character prevented him from being good in fact. He persuaded his breth ren that to take the life of their brother would not do them any good, but it would be far better if they should throw him into one of the deep pits which abounded in that country and there let him perish. 1 hey agreed to this, and when Joseph came up they took him and put him into a pit which was so deep and steep as to make it impossi ble for him to escape. Reuben intended to rescue Joseph from this pit and to send him back to his lather just as soon as his brothers got away out ot sight. But in this he was disappointed, because while he was off attend ing to his sheep, some Ishmael ites came along, and the remain ing brethren sold Joseph to them as a slave. It was a sad time for Reuben when he returned to the pit and found that Joseph was gone, but he could not help himself, so he acquiesced with his brethren in killing a goat and dipping Joseph’s coat of many colors in the blood, and taking it to their father, and making it appear that a wild beast had torn Joseph to pieces. In the course of time, Reuben married. No account is given of his marriage, neither do we know the name of his wife, but from the great number of de scendants attributed to him, we know that this important event was enacted. Four centuries af ter Reuben’s death, we are in formed that his male descendants twenty years old and upward numbered forty-six thousand,five hundred, which was certainly no bad showing so far as numbers are concerned. We do not know to what age Reuben lived. He died in Egypt in the , land of Goshen, and was perhaps em balmed after the fashion of the Egyptians, and it may be that his mummy is now preserved in some obscure vault in the land of Goshen, his form as intact, his features as complete as they were the date on which he was gathered to his fathers. Or it may have been that when his descendants under the leader ship of Moses, took their depart ure for the land of Canaan, the bones of their ancestor accompa nied them, and were placed in the bosom of the promised land, there to await the summons when the earth shall give up its dead. n.euoen s cnaracieris Desi giv en in the words of Jacob, when Jacob was at the point of death : “Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power : unstable as water, thou shalt not excel, because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed, then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.” Reuben was entitled to become the head of the family at his father’s death. He was born when his father was young and in the flower of his manhood. He had been his father’s hope and the beginning of his strength, but on account of evil conduct the birth-right was taken away from Reuben and divided between the two brothers, Judah and Joseph. Be ing unstable as water means that he possessed a quick, impulsive nature, ready tq, follow the promptings of his own desires and impulses without proper forethought and mature judg ment/ It was this rashness that unfitted him to take his father’s place as the head of the tribe, and that caused him to commit the grievous error against his father’s home. In the allotment of land among the Israelites, after they had conquered the land of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua, the descendants of Reuben were permitted to remain on the east side of the river Jordan in a sec tion that did not belong to Ca naan proper, but that had been conquered and taken from the native inhabitants. Here the Reubenites lived and prospered until the time of Jeroboam, when they went astray, and with the other lost tribes were swallowed up by some mysterious means by idolatrous peoples of other nations, and not one lone survi v'qr now exists to represent that branch of God’s chosen people. THE MINISTER AND THE SOUL. BY IAN MAC;I,AREN, IN AN EXCHANGE. It lies upon th^ minister of Christ to care (or the souls of his people (rom house to house; to spare no pains that divine service be beautiful and reverent; to af ford to the young every useful means of religious culture, to move his congregation unto such good works as lie to their hands ; but it is well (or him to remem ber that the most critical and in fluential event in the religious work is the sermon. History bears unanimous testimony on this point. When the evangel ceased or (ell into contempt, the Church grew weak and corrupt. When the evangel asserted its ancient authority, the Church arose and put on her “beautiful garments”. No power in human experience has wrought such mighty works as the spoken Word ; it has beaten down im piety, taught righteousness, giv en freedom to the oppressed, and created nations. No one can exaggerate the opportunity given to the preacher when, on the morning of the first day of the week, he ascends the pulpit and (aces the people who are gath ered in the name of Jesus, and wait to hear what he has to say to them concerning the things which are unseen and eternal. Each man carries his own bur den of unbelief, sorrow, tempta tion, care, into the house of God, and the preacher has to heark en to them all; lor, indeed, the work of the pulpit in our day is not so much to teach as to stim ulate and encourage. That min ister who recives a body of people more or less cast down and wearied in the great battle of the soul, and sends them forth full of good cheer and enthusiasm, has done his work and deserved well of the people. THE VALUE OF THE POSITIVE, FROM THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. The longer St. Paul lived the broader he became in his thought. Good men, as they grow old, change in one of two directions ; they tend to concen trate upon a few of the more im portant truths, or to enlarge the range and scope of all truth. St. Paul never lost intensity of be lief in the lew central truths, but he enlarged his horizon, and suf fered truth from outside to min gle with them. Thus some ap parent crudity of belief and some misconceptions of doctrine were corrected, so that his later thought wears the ripe and mel low cast of full-rounded wisdom. St. Paul learned the supreme art of living wisely in two worlds, and putting them in their right relations, using all of one to sub serve the other. Now it would be loolish to say that one of these tendencies is better than the oth er. St. John is the type of one, St. Paul of the other. Both are high and both are practical. There is advantage in sounding one truth to the very bottom, and there is an advantage in grasp iuglis many truths as possible. There are telescopes of great space-penetrating power which have but a narrow field of vision ; others that do not reach so far, but cover broader spaces of the heavens about us. One makes us feel the infinity of creation ; the other its complexity. St. John looked along the line of love and found the universe ; St. Paul looked on all sides and found the same universe ; each followed a natural bent. St. John preserved the characteristic of the Hebrew, who is seldom broad but is always intense. St. Paul broke away by degrees from his Jewish ways of think ing, and took on something of Gentile breadth and practicality. The note of negation is not ot ten found in any of St. Paul’s writing. Occasionally, as in the case of the Corinthian church, when there was a total lapse from Christian character, he is forced to adopt the negative tone and temper; but for the most part he confined himself to the positive side of things. It may be said that the posi tive and the negative are in real ity the same, two sides of one thing ; that the good is simply the nonbad.or that the bad is the nongood. In language they are indeed nearly the same, but in thought and in experience they are not the same, it is only by a trick of words that they are made to appear so. All life consists in getting out of and away from negative conditions into positive conditions. As we uncover the secret process in nature we find that it always consists in throw ing off some restraint or hin drance, and in coming into a condition where there is more substance and value. Creation is a process ot escape from neg ative conditions and ot entrance upon positive ones. The strug gle ot creation—and that it is a real struggle there is no doubt— is simply an effort to escape from some repressing limitation into a freer and fuller state; it is a struggle out of less life into more. The process goes on in socie ty. Its progress consists in es cape from low conditions ot want and suppression and limitation into a condition where they are lessened or thrown off'. When a savage learns to build a boat the limitation of space is taken away, and he gains wider territory and the mastery of another element. This is an epitome of civilization —limitations thrown oft", posses sions gained. It is the same in government. It should be our aim to get as quickly and as thoroughly as pos sible out of the negative side ol things and into the positive side. There is little doubt but that great mistakes have been made in education, in household train ing, in the nurture of character, by an over-use of negative meth ods. I am aware that there is a general idea that what is called family training is a thing of the past, and that children are no longer trained to obedience—a fact to be deplored if it is a fact, but even then it does not follow that former methods were not faulty and hurtful. There is in deed much family life in which there is not only no government of restraint or requirement, but no positive influence, no definite training, no word or example or spirit helpful to character; the whole household floats on the current of ease and inclination and present pleasure. There is much of this, especially where wealth is increasing more rapid ly than education, or is suffered to drive religion and moral ear nestness out of doors. But this does not modify the other point, that great mtstaices nave Deen made in education by repression and denial, and a general use of negative methods. When you attempt to train a child by prohibitions, you are simply damming up the will, which is sure to burst out in some other direction—sometimes in mental ruin, sometimes in revolt or disgust, sometimes in a broken will worn out by hard, dry effort unsupported by reasons and unfed by a spirit. Shall there not be rules and requirements and prohibitions and the disci pline of obedience as the condi tion of a steady will? By all means, but such requirement should be made to wear a posi tive character, and to aim at some real and positive result : and this result should be so presented that it shall win the whole nature of the child instead of his will only. This principle runs clear through, and finds its fullest expression in God himself,who is saving and training us not by law, but by revelations of him self : Sgg what I am ; become what I am ; feel,, do as I do. God is living himself into us through creation and through humanity ; impressing himself upon us in the great positive processes of each. What is Nature but God put into a lesson, and an influence which we are to learn and to feel? And what is the Incarnation but the carrying out of the same method in hu manity—God become man, that he may be a lesson and a power to men? What is Christ but God turned into human life tor us? Hence the immensely posi tive aspect Christ wears and gives to his teachings. The most positive thing in the universe is life, and so Christ lives a life, does little more, and makes that life an all-conquering, all j pervading reality. One never ; is moved to speak of Christ in negative terms, there is no occa sion for it; the positive is all that one sees, or can find. The strik ing thing in his teaching is the closeness with which they are bound to fact and life. They pertain to things to be done, and to feelings that issue in positive conduct. A W0R1> TO THE MINISTRY. BY PROF. J. U. NEWMAN, 1'H.l). A church college is to the de nomination what home is to so ciety. The school fails in its highest and only true mission unless it brings the greatest ben efit to the church of Christ. How can this be done? Neither pres ident, chairman or faculty alone are equal to this duty. There is only one way. All working to gether, believing that God has called us into the ministry and into the school to serve him. Without your prayers and co-op ! eration Elon College cannot do the work God has given her and which the church demand. The college desires to be in sympa thetic touch with all the breth ren, to receive your helpful sug ' gestions. Many of you brethren ! are giving your lives to the church for much less than you ! could get in other fields. With 1 out your encouragement and help, the college would never have been built. Recognizing : this, the college wishes to share with you this service, making no ! charge for tuition in literary branches for either ministers or their children. All she asks is that the minds of the young peo ple of your congregation be turned to the advantages she of fers, not (or the money accruing to her, but that these young peo ple may better prepare them selves (or greater usefulness in the church. S. C. Institute, Graham School and Elon College have given the Christian church in Virginia and North Carolina most ot its active ministers and many of its laymen. Take from your ranks every minister who has attended these schools and see how many in active service we have left. Far greater works than these shall Elon College do. Happy shall they be who in the day when her work is finished shall share in her glory. LIUHT IN THE SICK ROOM. t. BY REV. H. Y. RUSH. Most of preachers have spoken ' upon the subject of light. They usually speak of spiritual light, and attempt only spiritual appli cations. More instruction is needed upon sunlight—its na ture, its virtue, its many benefits. My visits among the sick impress me so to speak. Few families and few nurses appreciate the importance of light. To the sick the sun offers the cheapest and most pleasant restorative. Let the invalid have a plentiful sup pi}7. Our best friends and best physicians are Drs. Light and Air. Their elixirs are both life giving and life - lengthening. Why then confine the -sick to dark rooms and torture them with ill-ventilation? If such apartments would make the strongest plant pale and weak, what health have they7 for the human body? Give the invalid the lightest room in the house. Let him look upon the first gold en rays of the morning and feast his eyes upon the glory of the sunset. It will be good for both body and soul. Providence has often been impeached where death was due to sunless rooms and effete air. The doctor should have looked after this simple res pect for physical law. The preacher should have taught a little household science. That which a child might have Under stood should not be termed a mystery of Providence on funer al day. The minister should be an intelligent, instructive, help ful, all-round man. Even his mission in the sick-room is many sided. If to the invalid he can bring physical help or physical healing, he does only what his Master did. To be a minister of Christ means more than many preachers suppose. The Lord help us to think, to know, to help, to teach, to do. It is well to know some things besides the ology. It is well to know a lit tle about the laws of health ; a little about medicine; a little about the sanitary uses of “oil and wine" ; a little about how to help a wounded man onto a mule ; how to be a good Samari tan : how we may hear at last something about entering heav en on the ground of having “done it unto one of the least of these", while not a word is said about big sermons or boasted denominational names. There is more “go ye” in the gospel than “preach ye”, and even the “preach ye” is but another name for “teach ye." I State Lftraty . LOVE WORKS OUTWARD. from the southern church man. Love cannot begin with self alone. It never starts except to ward another. It takes at least I two t® make love a possibility. Love works outward. It it can not work that way, it cannot | work at all. What is called self love is not love ; it is simply a perversion, or an inversion, to ward self, of those qualities of the soul which ought to find exer cise in loving others. One who indulges in what is called love of self grows smaller, and is less and less able to love at all, while a love of others enlarges self j and a man’s power of loving. [ He who loves outward grows to ward God. He who turns inward those qualities of his being which * might make him a loving crea ture, shrivels his soul toward nothingness.
The Christian Sun (Elon College, N.C.)
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July 28, 1898, edition 1
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