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, MABUSflEl) 184%: !v J*'" - '•• ‘M' •i" • GREENSBORO, N. 0., WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1907.
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VOLUME LIX. NUMBER 5.
•mi
EDITORI,A;L, C0MMENT
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RAILWAY BATES.
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President Roosevelt last year, as the in-"
terpreter and the champion of public opin
ion, compelled Congress to pass the Railway
Rate Regulation Law. This law is in the
right line, but it is not'explicit enough. It
grants to the Interstate Commerce Commis
sion power to fix rates, but gives them no
standard'by which to be governed. What is
needed is a committee of experts—on the
one hand of railroad managers and on the
other of capable business men representing
the people—to settle on a standard and come
to an understanding. Then the commission
can act without laying itself liable to adverse
criticism from either party to the contest.
As it now stands this commission has no ba
' sis of comparison, no standard by which a
fair and equitable rate on freight and pas
senger transportation mhy be established and
maintained.
Not alone has the central government ta
ken up the regulation of railroad rates in
earnest, but many State' Legislatures are
taking a hand nip the matter. 1 In his mes
sage delivered before the General Assembly
at its opening this January Governor R. B.
Glenn of N. C. recommended a flat fare Of
2V^ cents per mile for passengers. A mem
ber of the General Assembly of the same
state has introduced a’bill for a 2 cent'fare
and scores of other bills looking to the reduc
tion of railway rates in N. C.i have been
introduced.
Representative Williams, of Duplin County,
has gone a step farther! ; His bill forbids any
public service corporation doing business in
N .C.,to declare a dividend of over six per
cent, the balance of the profits to go to a
sinking fund and to the State of N. C. It
would seem from the number Of bills intro
duction that our General Assembly means
business and that we are to -ride cheaper in
the future. V1 :
But our General-Assembly and all who are
considering the question of Railway Rtltes
will do well to recall’that the earnings of
railroads ean be expended in three ways.
1st They can bev spent in introducing safety
- appliances and better equipment, Comfort
hours for employees, and 'in greater comfort
and safety to the travelling public. ‘
2 They can be curtailed (which from" the
standpoint of the railroad m the same as
expended) by reduction of fates and rates.
3. They can Swell the dividends declared.
As’to number three we will not have much
to say. There is no doubt that too much of
the earnings of our great railway systems has
gone that'way-^-gone toi swell fortunes al
ready swollen beyond a safe size for a Re
public.
There is much to be said on number two.
The deplorable, awful catalogue of wrecks
that have brought death, suffering, and mis
ery to thousands during the past year is
involved iii this. If railways were compelled
to install the very latest safety appliances
and to equip 'their roads With the very best
rolling stocks OH the market and work their
employees only a reasonable number of hours,
wrecks would be fewer and travel safer and
life sweeter. The railroads of N. C. cer
tainly need attention along this line and
our legislators will do well to address them
selves to this line of the railway question.
Now a£ to number one. There is no doubt
that the railways can afford to carry pas
sengers arid freight, provided all pay alike,
and that is what' the Rate Regulaton Bill
passed by Congress stands for, for less than
they are now carried. They might not be
able to carry them for less and at same
time meet the demand of number two as to
safety appliances, equipment, and number of
hours of employees. But if they can not be
made to do both at once, would our legis
lators not do better to see that good road
beds, safety appliances, best equipments, and
shorter hours for employees are installed
than to raise such a hue and cry over the
passenger ratesf We have paid these rates
so far with poor equipment, could we not
a.-,-; v£j.< $ iUt.w • - ■. ■ «>; *>■'>' »i‘4l<
pay th,em with better grace of they were
well equipped f Let pur legislators look.frot
for our, lives first and our sayings from
lower rates second.
THE STATE AND THE CHTTECH IN
FRANCE.
The campaign for the restoration of the
Christian Sabbath in France and Spain is
■till attracting attention from all parts of
he world.,, In France the labor onions are all
•ausing friction by trying to enforce the
lew Sabbath or holiday law to its fttllest
ixtent. . This law requires every employer
lo give every employee under his charge one
Jay . in seven for rest. The labor unions are
trying to make this day mean the Sabbath
and thus force all shops, stores and factories
to suspend business on this day. And here
is where the friction is. France has long
known no Sabbath for the laboring classes
and it seems an impossibility to the employer
to close his place of business on the Sabbath
and give all his employees a holiday and a
rest on that day. ..., .. i
We doubt if there has ever, been a law
giver thot surpassed Moses even in. laws deal
ing with secular occupations. There is Jike^
]y economy even for the . miser in keeping
ibe Sabbath. French greed is blind to the
best interest of its material interests, to say
nothing of its religious welfare. The cause
of her millions of laborers smites to heaven
and an avenging God will hear their cry and
answer in relief, or else one-day France will
pay a heavy penalty, for persistent violation
of a law of the God. .of nations.
THE EVENING AND THE MORNING.
“ The'evening and the morning were the
first day.” God had said, “Let there be
light.”
lie began that way, and he continued: for
we read, “The evening and the morning were
the second day.“
J » '•* - * # .
It has been man's way to turn morning
into evening: but for a considerable period
man. had not been created, there was ttb in
terference with Godrs way; and we read,
‘ * The evening and the morning were the
third day.:’
Man has'the habit of turning the plain
into the mysterious, the truth into error, the
light into darkness; but God’s way was that
originally followed: to turn' darkness into
light; and “The evening and the'morning
were the fourth1 day. ” *',:i ; [
Man makes life a tragedy. As far as he
can, notwithstanding his laws, his houses,
his governments, his medicines, and his phy
sicians, he ends life with the tomb. But
God turns death into life. k (Man later ar
rogantly turned Iif<e> into death, but God de
fiantly turned it back by a resurrection.)
God’s waj/Tb make the morning to be the
effect, the^result, the end; and “The even
ing and the mornihg were the fifth day.”
Man begins with the positive, and turns
it into the negative. God begins with the
negative, and turns it into, the positive.
Man exhausted the wine at Cana of Galilee;
but Jesus had learned God’s way of doing
things, and turned the water into wine.
Morning followed evening until the sixth
day, when man came; and while man was
still young, “The evening and the morning
were the sixth day.” r
But how changed things were after that!
There came a moral struggle. Man at last
got men to saying,. Day and night, instead of,
Night and day.' God’s order was thus re
versed. God ’s logic had been for darkness t°
yield to light. Man’s logic was forced into
human language, and the day went out in
gloom.
Man turned the Garden of Eden into a
cemetery^ God turned a cemetery into a
Garden of Joseph of Arimathea, a resurrec
tion center. Man crucified the Saviour as a
felon; but God turned Calvary into the moun
tain of righteousness.
In the beginning of man’s career God had
given him speech, and almost its first exer
rfise was practical; the . naming of animals.
But man in a few centuries, haying migrated
for earthly prosperity to rich, slimy, alluvial
plains, thought to lift himself out of the per
Us of his low-lying levels, not by obeying
God, but by his own egotistical civil engineer
ing; and his Tower of Babel became a tower
of babble, with confusion of tongues. Man’s
speech betaine'gabble; and a group of house,
wives or ft company of modern reporters
cackle like a yard of hens. Man turned one
of the finest gifts of God, intelligent speech,
into the gibberish of society or the deadly
slander of malice. But then again comes God
to the rescue: he seizes on the words so com
monly serving as arrows of hate and death,
and makes them to be a gospel of love and
life. V
rsy tneir own skeptical interpretation oi
evolution men demonstrate that their logic
of having descended from the trees is only
a monkey-parrot chatter. But God takes
that senseless, unscientific babble (whose
accompanying gestures are directed no higher
than the tree-tops), and makes it the music
of angels’ voices, singing, “Glory to God in
the highest;” which excites saving faith, and
makes holy the purposes of untold myriads
of the sons of God.
Notwithstanding God’s beautiful re-creat
ing of human speech, turning its brute grunts
into the language of heaven, its evening into
a divine morning, man, who often loves dark
ness rather than light, so degrades language
that he vacates the words of Scripture of
word-meaning, and argues against their use
for the proof of heavenly truth. But Jesus
has so thoroughly learned God’s way of do
ing things, that he turns human speech into
more than proof: a very chariot of salvation;
saying. “The words that I have spoken unto
you are spirit, and are life.” Yea, he says,
“The words that I say unto you I speak not
of myself: but the Father abiding in me
doeth his works.” The words are more than
monkey-chatter; Jesus turned human jabber
black again into words—works—gospel.
God had said, “The seed of the woman
shall bruise the serpent’s head.” And man
took that prophecy, tortured it through the
ages, degraded it among various nations, cor.
rupted it into the legends of vulgar Latin
and- Greek poptry and mythologies, until
gods and goddesses were pictured as grati
fying human lusts in various forms. But
God seizes on his own prophecy again,
though so bestialized by man, restores to it
a purity as to divine parentage then forget
ten in earth; showing that the real Child of
God must be a child of the Spirit; and Mary
herself, in wonder exclaims, “My soul doth
magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath re
joiced in God my Savior. * * * * * * From
henceforth all generations shall call me bless
ed.”
It is evident that God is determined to
have his own way, though he allows man
his freedom; and God’s children need not
fear. Me will certainly turn evil into good,
the carnal into'the spiritual, the flesh into
spirit, lust into love (agape),, the beastly in
to the divine, the earthly into the heavenly,
the evening into the morning.
. J., J. Summerbell.
Box 906, Dayton, Ohio.
CONSCIENCE NOT AN INFORMATION
BUREAU.
.If conscience is a safe guide to what is
right aiid wrong then the Bible is not needed.
There is.no half-way ground here, for a guide
that needs guidance is no guide at all. And
as a matter of fact, conscience is not a guid ■>
and because so many souls mistakenly think
it is, confused and wandering errors in the
pathway of life are constantly made. Con
science is. a monitor. It prompts and prods;
it urges “Do what you know to be right; do
not do what you know to be wrong.” But
it does not instruct us in what is right aiuV
what is wrong; it is not a bureau of infor
mation. That instruction we. receive from
God in, many different ways, of which the
Bible and the training of parents and teach
ers are some. Therefore it will not do to
settle back in the easy assurance that w
have a safe guide in conscience. We hav<
S tremendous responsibility to..learn, frotr
sources, outside of ourselves, what is our do
y, and those sources are always available
when we really seek them.—S. S. Times.
AS ADDRESS TO THE MUflSTEBS
OF THE STATE.
“ To the ministers and pastors of all evan
gelical churches of the State of North Caro
lina, the Ministerial Association of the coun
ty of Mecklenburg sends greeting. We earn
estly address you on a subject which is vital
ly related to the welfare of State and Church.
We rejoice to know that “never in the his
tory of the agitation against drunkenness
and drunkard-making has the situation been
more hopeful. Temperance teaching in the
Sabbath-school, the physical effects of alco
hol systematically taught in the public
schools, these and like means of educating
the coming generations of church members
and citizens are surely leavening the lump of
our people.”
While we all, as ministers of the gospel,
unsparingly denounce the saloon business and
are uncompromising in our opposition to the
union of Church and State, yet we are thor
oughly convinced that in the great battle
against the liquor traffic, we as Christian
citizens, should be found on the “firing
line.” We are also convinced that our lack
of organization renders us less effective as
advocates of the temperance cause; and to
this extent lends eneoruagement to the ene
my. The good people of North Carolina
have deliberately resolved to close up the
saloons. Would not this glorious consumma
tion bet hastened by the effecting of such an
organization as is contemplated in this ad
dress?
We would respectfully make the follow
ing suggestions:
1. That in every county of the State an
organization be formed composed of all the
evangelical ministers in the county.
2. That the officers be: President, two Vice
Presidents, Secretary and Treasurer, said
officers to be elected every six months.
3. That the meetings be held at least quar
terly, at some central point in the county.
4. At the regular meetings such questions
as prohibition, divorce, ‘social evil,* a refor.
matory, Sabbath observance, etc., should re
ceive due consideration.
5. That at every meeting a earefully pre
pared paper be read on some reform measure,
after which the subject be open for general
discussion.
6. That arrangements be made fbr the dis
cussion of these important subjects at differ
ent points in the county.
7. Such an organization will not only pro
mote the cultivation of the social side of life,
but may prove educative to a higher degree.
S. Said organization would constitute a
basis for a state executive committee and al
so for a state convention when the necessity
arises.
y. This would enable the state committee
to come in close touch with the legislature
and lend aid to the enactment of laws favor
ing reform movements.
10. This organization is to be in no sense
antagonistic to the Anti-Saloon League, but
is designed to co-operate with it in all legi
timate measures.
After the adoption of the report a committee
of five was appointed to form a State min
isterial association. The committee is consti
tuted as follows:
Rev. A. R. Shaw, pastor Tenth Avenue
Presbyterian ehurch; Rev. H. K. Boyer, pas
tor Tryon Street Methodist church, South;
Rev. H. H. Hulten, pastor First Baptist
church,'Rev. R. C. Holland, pastor Lutheran
church, and Rev. W. W. Orr, pastor Fast
Avenue Associate Reformed Presbyterian
church.
The town of Burlington, N. C., in Ala
mance county, has for some time had a pas
tors’ organization. Of this organization Rev.
C. Brown Cox is chairman and Rev. J. D.
Andrew, Secretary. These brethren through
their city association have undertaken to or
ganize the Ministers of Alamance in accord
.mce with the principles of the above print
'd address. The organization will be effected
Feb. 5,1907, at 11 A. M., in the Presbyterian
hurch of Burlington. Surely this is a good
vork and all ministers in the county should * /
oe present and participate.