istian Sun.
IN ESSENTIALS—UNITY, IN NON-ESSBjT^ALS—LIBERTY, IN ALL THINGS—CHARITY.
ESTABLISHED 1844.
ELON COLLEGE N. C., WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1906.
VOLUME LVIII. NUMBER 47.
iUiiOKlAL CoikiM-tiftT.
Xilij lv>Ui4UiiOi tjJJl'l Ai Oil..
V* uen ilie nexi congress meets, me young
est bcmmor lu tuite ms scut m mat ouuy Win
oe now uovernor .UecKnum, oi ivenmcKy.
xnat will uo to tnniK. over. v> nen in luauness
anu lony uovernor uoeuoi, oi rv.eutu.eKy, was
snot uown oy mountain nuuies ana uespeia
uoes six years ago, tnis young man netnuam,
men a uoy, was meutenant uovernor ana oy
virtue or mat iact came to oe uovernor. so
sooeny ana wisexy aia ne manage anaiis
Inal wnen ms acciuentai term was aoue, ne
was le-eiecteu uovrnor on ms own account
by a gieauy mcieasea majority, inow it
cnauces mat iventucKy is a wniskey State
ana many oi its, towns were "wiae open” on
bunaays. ine young Uovernor saia Sunday
snouia be respectea ana that saioons on that
aay must snut up—or they wouia oe snut up
seven aays, msteaa oi one, xn tne week. So
berness uackea inm up and. tlien instead oi
becoming unpopular ifnm spreaaing such a
sentiment UecKham became popular, for he
was honest and sober and sound.
this fall, when entering the race for Ignit
ed States Senator, he went before the people
in the primary on his temperance record He
plead for temperance on the hustings and
from the stump, and his nomination, equal
in Kentucky to an election, is the vindication
of his efforts and a distinct triumph for tem
perance and sobriety even in this whiskey
manufacturing and whiskey-cconsuming stare.
Gradually the cause of soberness, temperance
and order triumphs. Let us thank God and
take courage.
PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING.
The Word tells that Christ, the only begot
ten of the Father, ‘ ‘ was made perfect through
suffering.” So in the economy of grace pain
has its place. As earth’s highest values are
obtained through suffering, heaven’s highest
virtues are reached through pain. “Made
perfect through suffering.” That is signifi
cant.
A writer in a recent Review tells how the
priceless pearl is produced. The writer says,
* ‘ Do you know the strange process of the for
mation of a pearl ? By some accident a sharp
particle of stone gets in through the mouth
of the oyster and becomes embedded in its
soft flesh. The irritation causes pain, and
as this continues the shell-fish has the remark
able property of surrounding the foreign sub
stance with a thick milky fluid from its own
body. This gradually assumes a round shape
so that the cutting edges of the sharp parti
cle are completely covered over, and then, of
course, the irritation ceases. This formation
hardens, and, lo, whoever opens that oyster
finds a pearl, perhaps a pearl of great pric~,
and the pearl never would have existed but
for pain. ’ ’
You and I have seen priceless pearls of
faith, of patience, of gentleness, of loving
kindness—and these never would have exist
ed without pain. Suffering is sometimes se
vere, and pain is grievous to be borne, but
somehow in the providence of God they have
their place, and in many a life produce that
pearl of great price which otherwise that life
would never have possessed. Even Christ,
the sinless One, “was made perfect through
suffering. ’ ’
A CONTEMPORARY AND WE.
Commenting last week on the Charlotte Ob
server’s editorial declaration of a few days
before, that “evil is at all times vastly super
ior as news to good, which is seldom news
at all” we essayed to substantiate our con
temporary’s assertion by giving, as briefly
as possible, a resume of what that “most
conservative and reliable daily” gave its
readers on a given date previously. We laid
no strictures and read no moral lecture to our
contemporary, but contented ourselves with
reciting the facts and then added,1 ‘ Mind you
no attack is here made, or intended, upon the
paper in question or the daily in general.
j-lie daily lias its place. It poin® out the
mid, the slush and the shame of society, the
awful pathos of human weakness,1 the terri
ble tragedy of human sin and evil. As such
let it be read. But that is not ell o£-life,
jot even the most, and certainly net the best
if life. The man who takes his- daily as
his only paper, or even as his principal read
ing must forever carry with him a <|firk pict
“This is an awful arraignment. It is
daily paper may tell you what isijtmt it is
needful that one read something of what
ought to be, and there is your religious pa
per.”
The daily cited was gracious enough to
publish in its issue of Nov. 25 the enfire edi
torial in question and then add on its Recount
these lines:
“This is an awful arraignment. It is
kindly, complimentary—for which we are ver
ry grateful— and it is severely critical. We
are ever mindful of criticism and highly re
spectful of it when it is deserved. But what
would our contemporary have us do? It
would not have The Observer suppress the
news, else it would lose interest in it. All
is fish that comes to our net. As explained
>ften before, we try to cut out or modify
the worst language, the most indelicate, the
baldest vulgarity of the many stories that
>ome night by night, but if the paper is to
•ontinue a newspaper, the substance of all
hat is of human interest must be handled,
t is the puipose of The Observer to do all
he good it can and as little evil. If wrong
ii’°s are done, if sin is committed, it is not
at fault but if it did not record the delin
quencies it would not only lail to discharge
what it conceives to be its duty, but might
be obnoxious to the charge that in failing to
trApuse crime it cuuuuxagcu it uj
ment. We can assure our respected friend
of The Christian Sun that if he ever tray
this path, in good conscience—as of course if
ie ever does he will—trying to discriminate
between what is necessary and what is bane
ful, he will find it thorny.
“With regard to the publication of news re
lating to the churches, The Observer is ac
quitted of delinquencies. It is always a dili
gent seeker for it. It does not wait for it
to come in, but goes out after it. Secular as
it is, and wicked as it is, Church news is
primary with it—and the promotion of all
Church interests is an object of its special
*are. No Convention, Synod, Conference, Con.
vocation, Presbytery, anywhere within its
sphere of influence, escapes its thought, and
if it ever misses one of them it is not its
fault. There is no paper of like size any
where that prints as much Church news or
more matter, in synopses of sermons, inter
pretation of Sunday school lessons, or like
matter, intended to forward the cause of the
Christian religion. If it does not print more
it is because it cannot g£l it. It were fool
ish if it were less advertent to these matters
—it has sense enough to know that our whole
civilization is bottomed upon this religion—
that if it languished, itself would languish
and fail.
‘ ‘ The Christian Sun is, as hlis been said,
kindly, but it is not wholly just. If it will
look into the facts a little more narrowly, it
will be more charitable to The Observer.”
Where upon we rise to remark that The
Observer accuses us of a criticism we never
uttered and “a terrible arraignment” we
never made. We did not presume to say
that the Observer should have left out a sin
gle article that it did publish or put in a sin
gle one that it left out. When we wrote that
editorial we were not .in a moralizing, but in
an analyzing mood. Does the Observer call
it not just, uncharitable, too narrow, severe
ly critical and “a terrible arraignment,”
for The Christian Sun to make a table of
contents, a brief summary of the articles The
Ohserver presented its readers on a certain
day? Wherein were we not just, not char
itable, severely critical?
Only a poor artist must write in letters un
der his pictures what ha has drawn; and only
a stupid writer mukt needs explain his mo
tive, but if the esteemed Observer, with its
accustomed intellectual acumen, failed to
catch the meaning and did Qot interpret the
intention and the facts of our editorial we
are persuaded that all others of our readers
must have done likewise. Ergo, some expla
nation. We were trying to show and said as
much in as plain English as we could com
mand, that the man and the household made
a terrible mistake that read the daily papers
and nothing more. That the church paper
though dull and insipid as news should have
some place as well as the daily paper. That
it was the business of the daily to show one
side of life—what had happened. That it
was the business of the church paper to show
the other side—what ought to happen. That
the man who read his daily papers only would
get at best an imperfect picture of his fellow
man and of human society. And in order
that we might be perfectly fair to our read
ers we chose the most conservative and re
liable daily in all our acquaintance and show
ed them from its table of contents what the
daily reading of the man and the household
was that read only the daily papers. If we
erred in choosing what we regarded as the
most conservative and reliable daily instead
of taking the most yellow and sensational,
then we plead guilty to severe criticism and
declare ourselves unjust and uncharitable,
both to our readers and to The Observer.
Or would our contemporary have its admir
ers read its pages and nothing else, discuss
by the fireside its contents and nothing more,
and make ‘ ‘ the bad w hich is superior as news
always” their daily topics of thought, speech
and converse? We had not thought it of a
contempory so gracious and so generous as
The Observer.
We most heartily acquit our neighbor of
all evil intents and purposes, knowing some
thing of the thorny way and further of its
splendid efforts to print church and religious
news; and repeat again that we were not pre
suming to preach to it, but to that, as we be
lieve, constantly increasing number of men
and women, boys and girls wno believe that
a daily paper contains sufficient mental and
moral pabulum for their daily sustenance—
and that a church paper isn’t much needed
in the home after all.
The church paper in needed, for it shows
a side of life not found elsewhere. And to
be pitied indeed is that home into which the
church paper does not go week after week.
Somewhere in the week, gentle reader, take
time and leisure to sit down and read your
church paper. It will tell mightily for youi
character and your manhood in the days and
in the years to come.
ANOTHER FRAUD EXPOSED.
The Progressive Farmer, of Raleigh, N. C.,
printed an article last week exposing the
stock food fraud which it openly declares to
be the most stupendous swindle now being
practiced upon American farmers.
Millions and millions of dollars are spent
every year for gaudily advertised “stock
foods, “ condition powders, ’ ’ etc., for farm
animals, while the investigations and tests
made by the Experiment Station have demon
strated that these preparations are nothing
more than common meal, bran etc., with a
little cheap sulphur, salt, Epsom salts, pepper,
saltpeter, etc. added to change the taste,
and the mixture (hardly more valuable than
ordinary ship stuff) put up in flaming pack
ages, advertised in big illustrated ads in farm
papers, and sold to gullible farmers at rates
ranging from $250 to $2,500 a ton.
These stock foods, which can be found in
almost any country store, have recently been
■tested in seven different Experiment Stations,
and our farmers who are paving such enor
mous prices for the mixtures, should be inter
ested in the results as reported by The Pro
gressive Farmer.
In Minnesota steers without stock food
gave better results than those using the stock
foods. In Kansas two lots of sheep were fed,
and those without stoek food made 117
pounds greater gain. In Massachusetts a
slight gain in butter was made—but at an in
creased cost of 48 cents a pound! Of nine
teen experiments in New Jersey, sixteen
showed no gains, and in the three cases where
gains were made from stock foods, their
cost was so great as to make their use un
profitable.
And so it goes. The Progressive Farmer
gives instance after instance—but we mention
these examples merely to warn our farmer
readers against wasting further the many
hai d-earned dollars that go out from our
county each year for these much-advertised
frauds—for frauds they are, although so con
spicuously advertised in many farm papers.
Here is one little leak which our farmers
may stop and keep some good money at home.
Let stock foods alone.
The frauds of our day are unnumbered,
but the wise will take warning when well ad
vised.
WATCHING THE CUSTOMERS.
Ever stand on a street corner, or at a near
by grocery, and out of idle curiosity watch
the stream of customers pouring into, and
then out of the grog shop? It is an inter
esting spectacle. It is bad manners, if not
poor morals, to note with too close scrutiny
your tjpghbor’s clothes, but when your neigh
bor wears bad clothes because he spends his
means to worse purpose than bad clothes,
scant food or indecent shelter, then a little
scrutiny may be pardoned.
Sometimes, then, when leisure and curios
ity allow, stop at the grocery and watch the
grog-shop visitors. On the whole they pre
sent an uncomely appearance, are in fact an
unenviable and an uncouth lot. You will at
once note that the dime they are about to
spend for drink would to better effect and
purpose have been spent for a shave; and
the nickel for a “short,” was certainly need
ed for a 4 ‘ shine. ’ ’ (A strange economy is
that which enables a man to pay ten cents
for a drink, but makes him feel that so much
paid for a shave or a shine would be sinful
extravagance.) Their shoes are run down at
the heel or finished up at the toe, and the
half-dollar they are now about to spend for
a pint would put their foot-wear in good re
pair and protect them from the cold. The
old overcoat, seedy and threadbare, hangs on
their stooped shoulders, as on the framework
oi a scare-crow, while the pockets of the
same bulge with ticklers the cash for whose
contents would have purchased a half dozen
coats and made the wearer look decent and
feel comfortable. The clothes they have on
are, for economy’s sake, those brought over
from the wreckage of last season, and now
look seedy enough for a haystack. (If half
the money spent for liquor last winter had
been saved for elothees they might have on
a tailor made and of the best.) And their
linen—well, the contents of a grog shop will
literally take all the starch out of the stiffest
and glossiest linen ever made. (Who fre
quents a barroom constantly, little by little
leaves his linen at the door, and dons instead
unkept, unwashed, unsavory rags as hundreds
and thousands of poor deluded fellows have
done before.) Truly is the track that leads
to the saloon the track of filth and dirt and
squalor, of tattered clothes, of wornout shoes,
of shattered nerves, and of wasted and dissi
pated forms.
Is it not strange that young men just be
ginning to j|o to the saloon do not see these
things, discover the campany into which they
are falling, and the society which the saloon
thrusts upon them, and in disdain, contempt
and shame forever turn their backs upon
such. The company that one must be thrown
into who frequents the saloon is enough to
disgust all decent folks. And this does not
touch the deeper question of morality, of
evil ajnd of hereafter. *
Mrs. Russel Sage is a factor in the finan
cial world, as was her distinguished husband.
She recently placed loans amounting to $8,
500,000 in one day. She is believed to con
trol at least $80,000,000.
Only eleven have been killed in foot ball
this season as against eighteen last season.
The rules have been modified and the death
list decreased by six. And then there have
only been 118 wounded seriously against 148
last year. So the new rules are not as cruel
and brutal—as they might be.