I
IN ESSENTIALS—UNITY, IN NON-ESSENTIALS—LIBERTY, IN ALL THINGS—CHARITY.
iABLLSHED 1844.
GREENSBORO, N. 0., WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1907. *
VOLUME Lia, N UMBER 24.
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.
A Record of Crime.—In the trial of Hay
wood, Pettibone, and Orchard, for the mur
der of ex-Govemer Steunenberg, of Idaho,
now going on at Boise, a record, of crime was
revealed unprecedented, we presume, in our
American annals. Orchard made, what he
claims to be, a clean sweep of the whole
matter so far as he is concerned and what he
tells of his own deeds is enough to shock a
man of steel. He admits that he was a hired
murder and assassin in the employ of the
Western Federation of Miners, of which
organization Haywood is the secretary. On
the stand and under oath, with every ap
pearance of exactness and truthfulness, and
in the most cold-blooded and callous way, he
testified that he had destroyed with his own
hands nineteen human lives. He fired the
explosion under the railway station at Inde
pendence that killed fourteen men; he hurled
the bomb in a mine shaft that killed two
men; he shot down in cold blood a detective
on the streets of Denver; he planted a bomb
in a vacant lot for Justice Gabbert, missed
the intended victim and killed an innocent
man; he attached to his gate the bomb that
killed Governor Steunenburg. All the time
of his criminal career he was, he says, in the
confidence and the employ of the Western
Federation of Miners. Orchard’s testimony
may be discredited, but one thing is known
of all: The crimes he names were committed
in the manner he has outlined, and the de
tails he has given seem impossible unless his
story is true.
Orchard divulges now that while he was
running his carreer of crime he believed
there was no hereafter. While awaiting in
prison his trial a Bible was sent him by some
one. He has been reading this, and declares
it has brought him to a different understand
ing of things: he now professes a faith in
the future, and believes that Jesus Christ can
save as vile a wretch as he is and has been.
This belief, he assigns as the motive he had
in confessing his record of crime. It is a
most horrible record and a most wonderful
’ confession.
A Christian Statesman: The whole coun
try mourns the loss by death on June 11 of
United States Senator, John Tyler Morgan
-of Alabama. He was in his 83rd year, had,
been a member of the Senate for thirty years,
.and had held many important and influential
committee positions, being especially interest
ed in the Isthmian Canal project and an
.authority on that subject. No man in the
Senate was more highly respected and esteem
ed. There may have been brighter men in
the Senate, but certainly none more honest,
. - •.clean and upright. Everybody knew that
there was not enough money in Washington
«to buy or influence John T. Morgan. A man
of deep faith, strong convictions, an implic
it trust in God has gone to his reward. How
such a life does brand as everlastingly false
the hollow delusion that a man must swear
and keep company with the bad and be fast
In order to rise in the world. Morgan rose to
eminence and for long year& held that emi
nence by being a good, pure, sincere man,
loyal to his church and faithful to his God.
Read these lines from an editorial in the
Daily News and Observer, “In many respects
the late Senator John T. Morgan was the
ablest man in that body of statesmen. He
illustrated in his life the power of the Chris
tian religion. In his youth he became a mem
ber of the Methodist church, and he was a
regular attendant at the small church of his
faith in the national capital. He never felt
the need of going off to some fashionable
church or forgot ‘in whom he trusted.’
In all his long career nobody ever doubted
Mr. Morgan’s integrity or sincerity. His re
ligion was ingrained and was seen in bis
^character and in his upright life.
That’s what religion does for a man of
faith who lives up to his profession. ’'
A Charitable Euchre. It looks almost sac
rilegious to put the two words together, char
ity and euchre, but they got together, and
that, too, through a church door, in New
York the other evening. A part of the
despatch read thus, “What probably was
ihe greatest euchre party ever held in this
country was engineered Wednesday night on
the pier of Dreamland, Coney Island. Tlje
astonishing number of 7,500 men and women
clustered about the cards—and the capacity
was supposed to be about 4,500.
The Rev. John L. Belford, of the church of
the Nativity, Classon avenue, Brooklyn, was
in charge. The euchre was in aid of the
church.”
A euchre party in the name of charity un
der the auspices of a church. That is enough
to make the angels weep. Is it any wonder
the church is discredited, pews are empty,
and numbers are falling away from churches
of the metropolis? The omnipotent One does
not need as stupid and silly a thing as a
card party to build his church houses with,
and only the stupid and the silly can think
that He does.
Destroying The Sabbath. It is grievous to
leeord that both houses of the New York
Legislature have passed a bill permitting
amateur games of baseball, with admission
fees, from one to six P. M. on Sundays. The
only hope now is that the unholy bill will
be killed by veto. There are unmistakable
signs every where that we of this country
are destroying the sacredness of the holy
Sabbath. God knew best when He sancti
fied and hallowed that day and declared it
should be one of rest. No nation of people
have ever yet violated that command and
desecrated that day, save to their own hurt.
Around many of our towns and cities, and
especially about the post office and railway
station one can hardly discern Sunday from
a week day. And for this Sabbath destruc
tion God will hold this Nation and this peo
ple to account. God stills reigns and His de
crees are inexorable.
A CHANGED LIFE.
Melvin E. Trotter.
I always feel a good deal like a wheel
barrow in an automobile parade when I get
up here with a whole lot of these preachers
behind me, but I’m always glad to get a
chance to tell how Jesus saved me. When I
heard Dr. Goodell stand here the other day
and tell how his father prayed two hours a
day for fifty years I bowed my head and
wept. My father didn’t teach me how to
pray. I tended bar for him—he on one side
and I on the other. I was a drunkard. I
couldn’t do anything but drink whiskey, so
I just drank whiskey. The first time moth
er ever saw me drunk I left home next
morning before she got up, and so I never
lived at home since I was a boy. I got to
following the race course, and learned the
three-card game. I was simply the boy with
a gang of bookmakers, and I was hitting the
high spots until I got so I couldn’t keep
sober and then the gang would drop me. I
?ot in with a gang of Mississippi river
thieves, and that lasted till I’d get drunk
and say things I hadn’t ought to, and then
I had an ugly way of handling myself when
I was drunk, and ^’d get to scrapping.
I got into serious trouble one tune, and
they had me on a suspended sentence; they
put me out in the country where I couldn’t
get whiskey and I was scared into being
sober eleven weeks. While there I married
the nicest girl in this house—she’s here to
night. Some of the old wise sisters came
around to her and said, “Look fyere, you’re
up against a gold brick.” And they were
right, she did draw a gold brick. The sad
side of a drunkard’s life is that he never
suffers alone. I didn’t. My wife suffered.
When you see a drunkard stagger down the
street, don’t you think he’s a drunkard be
cause he wants to be. I was six years mar
ried before I was converted, and all those
six years I was trying to quit. I tried every
remedy known to science. They gave me the
“gold cure” one time—a nice hypodermic
syringe and two bottles of medicine, and
I’d sold the whole outfit for three drinks
of whiskey in fifteen minutes. My wife
had money when we were married, but I
got hold of it and didn’t stay sober till it
was gone. We didn’t have any home; we
just traveled a little— that is, I travel from
our furnished room down to the saloon and
back, and my wife sat up in the window
and watched for me.
When a baby came to our home it was
the sweetest boy you ever saw. Soon as
he was born I went down and we had drinks
all round on the new boy, “Trotter’s new
boy,’’ and I didn’t get to see him for a week.
He got to be two years and a month old. 1
didn’t notice my home growing worse, didn’t
notice the baby seemed sickly, didn’t notice
wife was wearing the clothes she had when
we were married. One morning I was called
from a place, and rushed home and found
my baby dead in his mother’s arms, in a
cold house; she had cut up her last skirt to
keep the little boy from freezing, and there
she walked the floor with her dead baby m
her arms, and I felt like I was a murderer,
and I was, too. I wras wild. My wife laid the
baby down and came to me, and she said,
“Don’t take on so, you wouldn’t do it if you
could help it.” Over the baby’s dead body
she had given her heart to Christ. The
thieves and the gamblers and the harlots
helped me out and bought me a little white
coffin—six dollars I think it cost—and before
he was buried Mrs. Trotter took me to the
little dead boy and said, “Now, for his sake,
you’ll quit drinking, won’t you?” She said,
“I’m all alone in the world but you,” and I
promised her that whiskey would never
touch my lips again. We went to the ceme
tery, and came back, and when I got out of
the carriage the saloon keeper said to me:
“You’re as neivous as you can be; you need
a drink; better take just one and go home.”
I was shaking like a leaf. I took “just one”
and got-borne about six o’clock that night so
drunk I couldn’t see. My wife’s heart was
broken.
I went on down just as fast as a man can.
I got hold of $225 that didn’t belong to me
and bought me a horse, the best I ever drove,
took him out to a saloon in Long Grove,
Iowa, one time, hitched him to the bar and
said to the saloon keeper, “Give everybody a
drink,” and we drank him up, and I've
never seen him since. When I was in the D.
T. ’s they shipped me to Chicago, and I
landed there without money, friends or home.
But one night-a door stood open in East Van
Buren Street, and a little fellow stood out
side boosting. He says, “Come on in, Fatty,
just the place for you,” and in I went. It
was the old Pacific Garden Mission, and when
Harry Monroe gave the invitation I grabbed
my cap and started to the front, and Jesus
saved me, and from that day to this I have
never tasted whiskey nor wanted it. That
man took me home with him and gave me a
bath, and that night I slept between sheets.
You don’t know what that meant to me.
I went to work at my trade in the morning,
and the first man that came into the barber
shop was a millionaire real estate man named
Casey. I was trembling like a leaf. I said,
“You’re next, sir,” and he looked at me a
minute, and says, “I should say not.” But
I went into the next room and I got down
and I said, “Lord, I believe you Saved me
last night—now help me.” I went back and
he let me shave him. I met him the other
day, and asked him if he remembered that
shave. He said, “I should say so—I didn’t
dare draw a long breath all the time you
were doing it.”
That week I made four dollars and twenty
cents, telegraphed my wife to come to Chi
cago, and we went to housekeeping. We
hired a front room, and had everything that
goes to make life worth living, for Jesus was
there, too. I tended door in the Pacific Gar
den Mission six nights a week, and pretty
sqon they sent me up to Grand Rapids to
take charge of a rescue mission; never had
charge of a meetng before; never could say
anything. You know when I was saved I
lost half of my vocabulary, and had to go
stammering and sputtering ever since. But
we have been at work, and now we’ve got an
opera house that seats 1,750 people and the
biggest rescue mission on the globe. I have
been ordained a Presbyterian minister. I
want to tell you how I was ordained. Thej
told me I would have to pass the firstexann
nation in Christian Evidences, and I said,
“What’s that?” They said, “Are you
saved?” I said, “Yes I am.” “How do
you know?” I said, “I was there.” They
went on and asked me som'e other questions,
and finally one of the brethren wanted to
know if I was a Calvanist or an Armenian.
I said, “I don’t know th4 difference between
them.” They said, “Brother Trotter, we
think you preach a sound doctrine.” I said,
“That’s the Munroe doctrine, I got it from
Harry, and that’s all I’ve got,” and it’s this,
—that you and I and all of us are sinners,
and lost, and that Jesus Christ died to save
us, and whosoever will may come.—Record
of Christian Work.
• TWO FACTS
Dear Bro. Atkinson:
During my recent visit to the State of New
York I spent several days in the City of
Rochester, my home for some years in my
early life. In those years—back in the 40’s
—there was a small Christian Church locat
ed in one of the most delightful sections of
that beautiful city. The church building,
though small, was neatly arranged and well
adapted to the wants of the society. For
two or three years the church grew and pros
pered, but with the growth of the city ex
penses increased and as the society was poor,
for the lack of a little help to tide it over
the sea of discouragement thg work was
abandoned. Some years later the property
was purchased and, chiefly through the liber
ality of one man, an elegant church was
erected where the plain little house had
stood. The church was to be Congregational.
The projectors of this enterprise seemed
to think all that was necessary to make it
successful was money. Of this there was no
lack and its friends were lavish in their ex
penditures, hoping to attract by outward
adornments rather than by the “graces of
the Spirit.”
For awhile the church seemed to prosper,
but in a few years the interest began to
wane—till finally services were discontinued
and the church was sold. It is now owned
and occupied by a society of Spiritualists
whose “doings” are anything but agreeable
to the cultured and Christian people who
are most numerous in that part of the city.
From this brief history two things are ap
parent. 1st. That the Christians might have
had a strong church in Rochester to-day, had
the little “struggling band”’ received the
help they needed when the start was made
and then continued it in a small way until
the church became self-supporting, as it
would have done in two or three years, at the
longest.
And, 2. That no church believing in a
definite Christian experience as we do, can
hope to succeed, with any amount of money,
if it lacks spiritual power.
We need churches in cities—-the great cen
ters of business and wealth—far more than
we now have. But in trying to plant them,
let us keep in mind the two facts here sta
ted. We should‘sc 1 :nto these strongholds,
not only educated :: en and able men, but
men imbued with the Spirit of the Master,
and then stand by them, rendering such help
as may be needed, until the formation period
is over and a living church is gained.
D. E. Millard.
Portland, Mich.
The steam launeh belonging to the battle
ship, Minnesota, which was run down and
sunk in Hampton Roads with eleven seamen
aboard on the night of June 10 has been
found and raised some distance out from
Newport News.
A lot 25 feet wide, 100 feet deep, sold in
N. Y. the other day for $700,000, which is
$277 a square foot. Where many folks are,
land is high. The price of land varies, not
in proportion to fertility, but in proportion
to population.