All communications, whether for publica
tion Or pertaining to matters of business,
should be sent to the Editor, J. 0. Atkinson,
Elon College, N. C.
EDITORIAL COMMENT.
Schools or Prisons.—It is better for a na
tion to build schools than to build prisons.
But if a people will not build schools they
have to build prisons. For new schools and
old schools, for the pay of teachers in all
primary schools of her vast empire Russia
spent last year only twelve million dollars.
To build new Prisons only, Russia spent
primary schools of her vast ^empire, Russia
is spending fifty per cent, more on Prisons
than on Schools. Is it any wonder that the
nation swarms withi murderers, assassins,
and law breakers of every differing degree
and kind. The great majority of convicts
and prison inmates are drawn from the vast
hords of ignorant and untutored.
Next to the church, the most effectual
foe of the penitentiary is the school house.
Thou Shalt Not Steal.—There are high
class and low class thieves. Both are thieves,
however. The only difference between the
classes is that'one class steals for fun or
curiosity, the other steals for profit. Both
are equally guilty of violating the law of
God’s holy Word.
The class of thieves now claiming atten
tion is the curiosity seeker, the souvenir
hunter. It is given out that these souvenir
seekers literally robbed every available arti
cle, that could be detached, from the cabin
of the Duke of Abruzzi’s flagshi now
visiting in AmeHcan waters while an
chored in Hampton Roads some weeks since.
“Nothing was too small to be overlooked
and nothing too valuable to be taken.” The
Duke’s flothes—-brushes, combs, buttons of
uniforms, pipe, and cigar-stand, even his gold
toilet set presented by the King of Italy,
were among the articles, of which the souve
nir hunters relieved his highness. We do
not care how high is society these souvenir
seekers stand, nor what sort of clothes they
wore, they were on day and place aforesaid
thieves and robbers.
A hotel proprietor told this writer once
that he could not keep silver salt cellars and
pepper boxes, nor even silver knives and
forks on his table for “the souvenir hunt
ers” whom he correctly branded as thieves.
When George Vanderbilt finished his man
sion at Biltrilore, N. C., he allowed visitors
to go through and view it on certain days.
The reward to Mr. Vanderbilt’s generosity
to the sight seer was almost the demand
ing of windows, tables and mantle pieces of
all detachable and movable articles.
When a man takes from another that
which belongs to the other, and without the
other’s permission, that man has committed
theft. Calling it by some other name does
not change the fact. .“Thou shalt not setal”
applies equally to souvenir hunter and
sneaking rogue.
Fact and Fiction. There are folks, you
know, whose minds never go beyond the
dread, dull facts of every day drudgery.
They do not like to go fishing, for instance.
And for ycu to tell a fish “story!’ in their
presence is pain to them. Such people lack
in imagination and could no more invent
any usfeul device than they could write a
real poem. Art, poetry and invention are all
foreign to their vocabulary. When Napoleon
was first Consul of France he wrote *1 Cit
izen Fulton’s proposition (that of building
a steam boat) may change the face of the
earth,” and forth with appointed a commis
sion From The Academy of Science to in
vestigate Fulton’s embrionic invention and
enterprise. That commission of learned sav
ants .reported back to Napoleon, after their
investigation, in these words “Sire, we have
effectually found a motive power in steam
but of a nature so feeble that a child’s tov
could hardly t>e put in motion by it.” V'e
wonder what the committee would say to day
about the motive power of steam could they
see thq great ocean liners, like mighty mov
ing palaces and power houses, swiftly gliding
over the high seas without let or hindrance
and oil schedule time to the hour, or witness
the great locomotives carrying, at sixty and
seventy miles an hour, hundreds of passen
gers or cargoes of freight. The people of dry
fact would have had the world at a stand
still, long, long ago.
Oliver Wendell Holmes in his Autocrat of
the Breakfast Table says this of “facts.”
‘ ‘ All generous minds have a horror of
what are commonly called “facts.” They
are the brute beasts of the intellectual do
main. Who does not know fellows that al
ways have an ill-conditioned fact or two
which they lead after them into decent com
pany like so many bull dogs, ready to let
them slip at every ingenuous suggestion, or
convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy?
[ allow no “facts” at this table. What!
Because bread is good and wholesome, and
necessary and nourishing, shall you thrust
a crumb into my windpipe while I am talk
ing? Do not these muscles of mine rep
resent a hundred loaves of bread? and is not
my thought the abstract of ten thousand of
these crumbs of truth with which you would
choke off my speech?”
Holmes was there think of the artist,
he inventor, the poet, the prophet.
So was Dr. W. W. Staley at the recent
Elon commencement when he said that
“The one who pulls an eight pound fish to
he top of the water, and the fish drops back
before being landed or weighed, has not ex
actly exaggerated about the size of the fish
or told a falsehood but has seen a vision and
painted a picture.”
This world and all our society is based on
“fact,” but unless there were artists to
paint pictures, dreamers to see visions, and
prophets to reveal mysteries, we should not
only have a dull and very stupid, but af
ter awhile a very unwholesome and stag
nant world.
“PRAY WITHOUT CEASING.”
Those who are wont to contend that com
pliance with the above command is impossi
ble, will do well to note carefully the words
of the celebrated Christian, scholar, teacher,
and Confederate General, “Stonewall” Jack
son. He said:
“I have so fixedthe habit in my own mind
that I never raise a glass of water to my lips
without asking God’s blessing. I never seal
a letter without putting a word of prayer
under the seal. I never take a letter from
the post without a brief sending of my
thoughts heavenward. I never change my
classes in the lecture room without a min
ute’s petition for the cadets who go out
and those who come in.”
If such a busy man could find time to
pray thus, cannot others do the same? Of
course some will say that his prayer did
not avail anything, for the cause for which
he fought so heroically was wrong and mis
9i-ably failed. But do not ju«Jge thus rashly
as to the efficacy of prayer. God does not
always answer our prayers by giving us
what we ask for. He is wiser than we and
often gives us something better than that
for which we pray.
As a conscientious Christian man, “Stone
wall” Jackson had the highest good of hu
manity and the glory of God uppermost in
his heart but he ei’red in judgment when
he concluded that the success of the South
ern Confederacy was in accord with those
high ideals. Hence God, in His wisdom and
mercy, and in accord with the fortunes of
war, permitted him to fall in battle, and at
the hands of his own men, took him home
to heavn, thus sparing him the humiliation
and disappointment of living to see that he
made a great mistake when he cast in his
lot with a Confederacy that had taken for
its chief corner stone that “sum of all vil
lainies,” human slavery.
God really gave him what he asked for,
namely, the salvation of his own soul, a home
•n heaven, and the triumphs of the best in
terest of humanity, by defeating, the Con
federacy and securing the triumphs of the
Union and liberty.
If, as we believe, “Stonewall” Jackson,
looks down from heaven today, and sees our
happy united country in all its greatness,
enjoying peace and prosperity, East, West,
North and South, the hope of the oppressed,
and the admiration of all foreign nations,
:e can but say: “Well, God knew better
than I did; He did not answer my prayer in
the way I hoped He would, but He has
answered them in a far better way and on a
“much grander scale, and to His name be all
the glory.”
“Pray without ceasing,” but do not mis
take dictating to the Lord for devout, ear
nest prayer. “By prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your request be made
unto God;” always supplementing your re
quest, as did our Lord his in the garden, with
“Nevertheless Father, not as I wilt, but as
Thou wilt.”—Religious Telescope.
CHRISTIAN HOMES THE HOPE OP THE
WORLD.
Everything that is good in the church or
in society is first planted, shielded, nurtured
in good homes. A thoroughly Christian home
implies a great deal. The spirit of Chris
tianity aims at the totality of our being, mind
and heart, as well as conscience. There are
many sides to our nature and all need to be
duly cultivated. The science of life is the
greatest of the sciences. The art of life is
the greatest of the arts. And it would be
nonsense to suppose that all this could
come about by any sort of blind and
idle chance. A home that is really
good, that is radically and thoroughly
Christian, is a center of eager, incessant,
manifold activities. It is full of animation.
It is alive to itself and keenly sensitive to
its surroundings. Everything that is hu
man is of interest to it. Each true Chris
tian home seems to itself to be the very
center of the world, from which its lines of
intelligent sympathy reach out everywhere.
The home—no more, than the individual—
does not exist for itself. If it tries to, it
will miserably fail. Every good family is
conscious of being part of the whole family
of which God is the Father, and its mem
bers are eager to keep in communication
with the deepest longings, the worthiest ac
tions, the noblest thoughts, the finest utter
ances of others everywhere, past and pres
ent, and so of striking into the swim and mid
current of all the best and mightiest life of
the world. If Christian missions have any
meaning, it is in the creation and multipli
cation of good homes. Good homes are the
hope of the world.—Advance.
THE GOOD FIGHT.
The world worships heroes, but it is often
slow to recognize them; for it either knows
nothing of the great cause in which the hero
fightk, or at least knows too little of the
struggle to note the achievements of any but
the most prominent heroes. Even these it
does not hear of till the battle is ended.
Robert Louis Stevenson says: “The w’orld
has no room for cowards. We must all be
ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And
your lot is not less noble because no drum
beats before you when you go out into your
daily battlefields, and no cowards shout your
coming when you return from vour daily
victory or defeat.” In the fmht you are
alone just because you are in the crowd. If
you fall, your comrades will move on and
leave the ambulance corps to decide whether
vou are dead or only badly wounded. Your
fot is a hard one, but it is only tJhe lot of
the soldiex-. The real fight is always fought
i/nder the eye of God alone. The world ad
mires the soldier on parade, but only his cap
tain sees him fight.
The world is a poor judge of the hero,
because it does riot always understand him
or even appreciate the cause in which he
fights. The man who gives his life to a little
cause is not a hero. The cause must be wor
thy of the sacrifice. It is said that George
Washington, when he was a boy, risked his
life to cut his name on the rocks under the
famous natural bridge a little higher up.
'vv •' ",
. \
than other boys dared to climlr. He risked
his life foolishly; and if be had lost his life
then and there, he would have died the death,
not of a hero, but of a fool. But he lived
to sacrifice his ease and his private plans
and ambitions, and to risk his life in a noble
cause; and so he became a heio.
There is one cause that is so noble that
it makes a hero of every one that espouses
it, and so comprehensive that it includes all
hat is right and noble. The field of battle
's so wide that it covers the world; the con
test is so multiform that it must be fought
out by the hands of old men and of little
children, as well as by the strength and the
courage of men in their prime. Yet the
world knows but little of the struggle, though:
ihe world’s best interests are at stake. The
victories gained on that field have made what
we call civilization. Most of the heroes that
have fallen in the fight will not be known
except to God till the last foe is conquered.
But, after all, it is enough to be known
by him. The hero that dies on the field, or
that makes his life one long sacrifice for
God and man, does not usually receive much
notice from the world or from even the sec
ular part of the Church. The world is too
busy applauding the stage hero, whose hero
ism is for show; but one “well done” from
the lips of the Captain who watches now
and wrho will reward then is worth more
than the world’s applause.—Christian Ad
vocate, Nashville.
Children are born in God’s image; the like
ness fades only as sin, voluntarily chosen,
gets in its work. But the likeness need not
fade, if children can be held to the stand
ard which God intends. This is why work
for children is the greatest work in the
world; why, as Phillips Brooks said, “He
wTho helps a child helps humanity with a
distinctness, with an immediateness, which
no other help given to human creatures in
any other stage of their human life can
possibly give again.” Are we thinking of
this, day by day, as the opportunities for
serving His little ones crowd upon us? Are
we careful to show, and to be, only our best
selves before them? The gain of helping
such a one into character is hinted at in
Christ’s description of the millstone penalty
which is preferable to causing one such to
offend.—S. S. Times.
There is a just complaint among the editors
and publishers at the high price of paper.
The paper on w7hich The Christian Sun is
printed costs nearly, or quite, twice as much
as it did six years ago and the price still
soars. One thing is certain. If the price of
printing and paper go much higher subscrip
tions will have to advance or many a paper
will have to go out of business. Prices now
are almost unbearable which, we are told, are
due to the paper trust. The band of the
mighty trust is felt every where now.
._ '■
The Raleigh News\and Observer has again
shown evidences of being a truly great paper
by the splendid edition issued June 6 cele
brating its triumphant entry into a magnifi
cent new office fitted with the best and most
modern printing and news paper equipment.
The Observer is close to the hearts of thou
sands of North Carolinians all of whom re
joice to see these signs of continued progress
and prosperity. Heartiest felicitations to
Editor Daniels.
Dr. Rowland, a physician of Raleigh who
wasrecently arrested and put in jail at Hen
derson for the murder some weeks since of
his twelve year old son was acquitted, there
'eing found no traces of poison in the boy’s
stomach. Rowland was immediately rear
rested for the murder of engineer Strange
whose widow he married in a few days after
Strange’s death. His wife is ?also under in
dictment as being accessory.
The Princess Anne Hotel, Virginia Beach,
was burned early on the morning of June
10. There were 110 guests and employes
at this hotel many of whom only escaped in
their night clothes. Three lives were lost.'
The loss is $185,000 with $83,000 insurance.