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. ,
The Negroes’ Friend. Bishop Henry M.
Turner, colored, of Philadelphia, is reported
to have said in a speech at Boston the other
■day “The United States is no friend to the
negro man.” Only a very blind, prejudiced
.or ignorant man, white or black, could say
that and expect anybody with a thimble full
of brains to believe it. Fact is, about the
.only friend, indeed the very best friend, the
negro has, from a national point of view, is
the United States. To find this country and
live among free Americans is the greatest
boon God ever sent the African and his de
scendants. Here the white man has built
a government, from flesh and blood in truth
has carved otit a republic, the like of which
for the poor man and the toiler this world
never saw before, whose blessings the negro
shares, whose protection and whose benevo
lence the negro, equally, in law, with the
white man, enjoys. It secures him in the
ownership of property; it renders his person
and his holdings inviolate; it creates a most
liberal system of free schools and educates
the negroes’ children there: and it guaran
tees him the right and privilege of worship
ping God under his own vine and fig tree^
having taught him of the true God to wor
ship. The United States not the negroes’
friend indeed! There is not another nation
under the sun that has treated him so kind
ly, dealt with him so patiently, shared with
him so bountifully and taught him, intellect
ually, morally, religiously, so faithfully as
has ours.
Slavery may have been a curse, and viewed
in itself let us call it so. But if through this
channel only the negro could have been
brought to this “land of the free and home
of- the brave,” he ought to be thankful
ever more that the curse was visited that me
blessing might arrive. For, that he is here
is certainly the greatest blessing his people
ever received from a kindly and allwise Prov
idence.
Now then that they are here, and we ui.
here,, there is no use ranting: there is no
use abusing, falsifying, slandering the one
the other. The whitman and the black man
are here. We must contrive some how to
live it out and work out our common fate
and destiny under this glorious Government.
Allegiance In Depravity. The National
Wholesale Liquor Dealers ’ Association met
at Atlantic City the other day. They need
not have met. Sin and shame, drunkenness
and depravity will go on in this world with
out concert of men to advocate and promote
these iniquities. But they met, these Liquor
Dealers did. Here is what they did: A call
was issued for a federation of every liquor
interest in the United States “not only to
meet the present sweep of prohibition agi
tation, but to prepare to check the movement
in the presidental conventions of 1908.”
They want to start in time for next year’s
campaigns because, as their speakers declared
“ growth of the crusades against liquor will
force party leaders to recognize the neces
sity of placing some ‘platform doctrine’ deal
ing with the subject before the people at
the coming election.” So it was urged
to raise “a great campaign fund” and large
contributions are desired “from every liquor
interest. ’' >
Thus the liquor dealers are allied togeth
er to fight the onward march toward tem
perance, sobriety and order. These would
stay the progress of prohibition if they could
and establish a saloon at every village, ham
let and cross-road in all this land. They
would place the bottle in the hands of every
boy, and the decanter on the side board of
every father throughout Christendom if it
were within their power. And further than
this and as a consequence of this, they would
fill to overflowing, our poor houses with pau
pers, increase beyond limit the inmates of
our asylums, multiply beyond measure the
number of widows and orphans, and crowd
to the utmost every jail and prison from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. These liquor deal
ers, my brother, what do they care, if only
they may debauch men in revelry and filch
from them their dollars? They are allied
in depravity and bound together with the
fetters of hell. Woe unto that man, that
organization, that political party that will
march under the banner of their leadership!
Troubles of the Sea.—By investigation, and
ingenuity palaces have been placed on the
sea, and many mansions are planted on the
blue. Ocean travel is a luxury and a sea
trip is a most coveted pffee. But that does
not argue that man has overcome the deep,
and the sea no longer has its perils. In the
calendar year 1905 ten hundred and thirty
eight sea going vessels were lost, of which
number 387 were steamers. Fire destroyed
29; while 455 ran aground; and 81 have the
tragic record of “missing.” There were in
the same year 5,418 serious marine accidents.
For all the comforts, luxuries and privi
leges man enjoys, mankind pays in damage,
sadrifice and death. The purchase price of
progress is bone and sinew and nerve and
blood.
THE LOST CHRIST.
Gypsy Smith.
Luke ii, 41-49.
I want to speak about a subject which at
first may seem a little startling. It is the
subject of “The Lost Christ.” We hear
of the Christ of lost things, that seems nat
ural; but who has stopped to think of the
lost Christ?
“Let him that thinketh he standeth, take
heed lest he fall.” You may be on the most
intimate terms with Jesus; you may be liv
ing in the closest and dearest fellowship with
| Him; you may be standing in the inner cir
cle, but the possibility of losing Him is
there. My words may not appeal to some of
you, but if they do not, it is because you
have never seen Him. If you do not com
prehend my meaning when I talk about a
lost Christ, it is because you have never look-1
ed into His face, and because you have never
taken the trouble first of all to find Him;
but to those who have bowed at His feet
and wiped them with the hair of their heads,
as well as bathed them in their tears; you
know what it is to lose that dear smile, and
you will understand me. For when we have
once seen Him, it is hell to lose His face.
It is said that a year or two ago a great
naturalist went^ into tlje Highlands of Scot
land .with his microscope to study the depth
of color, the delicacy of form, the beauty,
charm and daintiness of the little heather
bell; and that he might see it in all of its
glory, he got on his face in front of the
little heather bell §o that he might see it
without plucking it; so that he might see it
with its natural life in it.
He had adjusted his instrument, and was
gazing at the heather bell, lost, absorbed,
revelling in the beauties in front of him,
when all at once a shadow played over the
instrument. He thought at first that it was
a passing cloud, but it stayed there. Turn
ing around he saw a fine specimen of the
Highland shepherd. Rolling over, he pluck
ed a little heather bell and handed it and
the microscope to the shepherd, that he, too,
might see something of its beauty.
When the microscope was adjusted so that
the shepherd might see the little heather bell
through such an instrument for the first
time in his life, he looked at it a long time,
and then the tears streamed down his rugged
face. He handed both microscope and heath
er bell back to the paturalist and said, “I
wish you had never shown me.”
“Why?” said the naturalist.
“Because that rude foot has trodden on so
many of them. That’s why,” he said.
And when you take the microscope of His
Word and get a vision of God, of Jesus,
then you will whip yourself that you have
lived one moment of any day without giv
ing to Him the place that He should occupy
in your heart and in your life. It is this
vision that makes Jesus so wonderful. 0
Holy Spirit^ v'eriour eyes that we may see!
Some of you will not understand me un
less the Spirit illuminates, because you have
never known Him. Others, who knew Him
once, who walked with Him once, whose fel
lowship was beautiful, sweet, holy, precious,
heavenly, once, but who have lost Him, will
understand my message, and it is to you that
I speak.
Let me repeat it: It is possible to lose
Christ. The most unlikely person in the
world was the first person to lose Him; His
own mother. You may be a preacher, but
if you are not careful you will lose Him.
You may be an evangelist, but if you are not
careful you will lose Him. The knowledge
of the thing will be our cure if wre do not
mind. The letter may Kill. It is the spirit
that giveth the life.
You may be an office bearer; you may be
a worker; you may stand in the inner circle,
and you may lose Him. And the worst of
it is that you may lose Him and be uncon
scious of it, for Mary did not know that He
was not there. She supposed that He was
in the convention procession. She supposed
He was at the conference. It does not do to
suppose anything where your soul and God
are concerned. Supposition won’t do. We
have supposed too much. We have allowed
these things to drift on supposition and we
have lost God and do not seem to know it.
Mary lost Him, Joseph lost Him, Samson
lost Him.
Look at the Church without Christ in Reve
lations. 1 Church without Christ! They
called a church meeting and said: “We are
rich, educated, cultured. We do not need
anything. ’ ’ But God looked down on them,
and said: “Poor, blind, deluded, miserable
thing. Behold, I stand at the door and
knock. If any man hear my voice and open
the door, I will come in to him, and sup
with him and he with me.”
What is the good of the Church if Jesus
be absent, and what is the good of the tri
umphal, or apparently triumphal, procession
if Jesus be absent? What is the good of
the annual feast if Jesus be absent? Jesus
makes the procession. Jesus makes the feast,
and if Jesus be gone the other is mockery.
Look then, /ind find out where you are.
Do not listen for other people. Give your
own soul a chance. Oh, don’t suppose!
You have been doing that too long. They
supposed He was with the company. Don’t
you let things slide. I must have Jesus. I
must be sure of His presence. I won’t move
an inch without Him. I know the danger.
It is better that I should walk through the
world with one eye if my Guide is but
nigh; it is better to lose this right hand, if
He but holds the left in His. Whatever
else, I must not lose my Lord. I must keep
close to Jesus all the way.
Upon one of my visits to your country I
returned home in May, and when I reached
home my pastor was busy with a great
scheme for providing homes and shelters for
waifs in the city of Manchester, and he had
a big sail on—a sale' which was quite reli
gious. ’ It'was clean. And I felt that, though
I had been away from my wife and children
for nine months, my place was there, doing
what I could for the lost of the city. When
I got there, my little girl got hold of my
coat tails and hung about my knees with
her little prattling voice—music my soul
had been hungry for for nine months—ask
ing a thousand questions. An unmarried
friend of mine came up to me, and wanted to
know all about the wonderful things God
had privileged me to see. He was not ac
customed to children, and I was afraid that
the prattle of my child would interfere with
my bachelor friend, who did not understand
as I did a child’s voice. To relieve him a
little I thought I would send this deaf*7 lit tie
thing away for a few minutes, so I took some
money out of my pocket and said, “Here,
Zellah, take this and spend it at the pretty
store.” Her black eyes overflowed with
tears, and she said: “I don’t want your old
money. You have been away nine months;
do you know that? Ahd I just want to be
here where you are. ”
" I never was so rebuked in my life, and I
tell you, I have discovered that lots of peo
pie are satisfied with the Lord’s gifts, but
they do not want the Giver.
Have you lost Jesus? You know. Mary
found it out at the close of the first day.
When did you find it out?When did you dis
cover the loss? She looked for Him in the
evening, but He was not there; and, oh, the
agony of that mother’s heart when she found
that He was not there!
Listen. Not only did the most unlikely
person in the world lose Jesus, but she lost
Him in the most unlikely place. She did
not lose Him at the theatre. She did not
go. 1 should expect to lose Him if I went
there, because He would not go there with
me. I do not believe any Christian that
has the spirit of Jesus would go there either.
She did not lose Him in the ballroom, for
she 4$d not go. She did not lose Him at the
card table. Just as sure as you are alive,
somebody will have to hall a halt to the
churches of America, for card playing and
theatre going and dancing are running away
with the churches of the United States.
She did not lose Him running with the gid
dy multitude to do evil. I know that she
did not do thetee things, or she would not
have been His mother. She was
cause she was a good woman. She lost Him
where she did not expect to lose Him. She
lost Him at the annual conference. She lost
Him in the temple. What does that mean?
It means that you need not boast about your
goodness, and say that you are as straight
as straight can be. Mary was, too, but she
lost Jesus all the same. You can lose Him
in the splendor of the music; in the magic
of the speaker’s words; in the spell of his
voice; and, although it is the last thing I
want to do, I may lose Him while I am talk
ing about Him, if I am not careful. She
lost Him in the temple.
It would be very easy for you to lose Him
in the Church, in the place where you went
to find Him, for the devil goes to church as
well as you. You may lose Him, and only
the concentration of all your powers will en
able you to keep your eye on Him as you
ought.
Listen. The most unlikely person in the
world lost Him. She lost Him in the most
uplikely place, and—listen—she found Him
where she lost Him. And that is how it
works. Mary and Joseph found Him where
they lost Him. David found his Lord when
he confessed the sin that made him hide his
face. The prodigal found his father just
where he left him. “Where is the bless
edness I knew when first I saw the Lord?”
Where is it? It is where you left it. The
demands of the cross are tremendous. The
claims of Calvary are exacting. You must
go back to the place where the thing was
done which came in between you and God.
When you go back, you will find Him wait
ing.
We are so impulsive. We go ahead of
Him and very often we leave Him. Three
days, or three weeks, or three months, or
I hree years since you lost Him. Do you
know the place? Go back this morning.
I tried to preach this sermon in Chicago
to an audience of 4,100 people, and I wish
I could tell you some of the things which
came to pass.
The next morning the son of a very rich
man walked int ! 's father’s office and said.
“Father, I am not afraid of jail, for yon,
love me too much, but that man lasWnight
told me that if I wanted to find Christ I
would have to go back to the place where I
lost Him, and I have come this morning.
For ten years I have been systematically
robbing you, and I have robbed you of hun
dreds of thousands of dollars. Will you
forgive me?”
A lady heard that sermon, the wife of a
millionaire. The next day she rung up her
pastor and said: “Doctor, I want to see you.
I must see you. My case is desperate. ’ *
“What is the trouble?” asked her pastor.
“Well,” she answered, “Mr. Smith told
me last night that if I wanted to find Christ
I would have to go back where I lost Him.”
“Yes,” said the pastor, “that is right.”
“Well,” said she, “I have a secret in my
life that my husband does not know. There
(Concluded on page 5.)