IN ESSENTIALS—UNITY, IN
THINGS—C HARITY.
ESTABLISHED 1844.
GREENSBORO, N. 0., WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1907.
VOLUME LIX, LUMBER 32.
All1 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.
fining to College? The schools and colleges
are already announcing that prospects for
■“the best opening yet” are brighter than
ever. There seems to be no doubt that school
patronage generally will be largely increased
the coming year. This is indeed news most
gratifying to print. We doubt if a more
wholesome announcement has been made in a
decade. The time has come when the young
man or woman who does not educate is put
to poor advantage in the struggle these
strenuous times have brought about. The
race was never so trying as now.
True a person may make a living without a
college education. But the struggle of this
day is not to make a living. Anybody can do
that. The eoffrt now is to live a life—to
attain to efficiency, bring things to pass, en
gage in real service. To say that a college
education does not help to this is to say that
a dull ax will cut as well as a sharp one. The
process of the college is that of grinding the
ax. One may still spend the day somehow
with a dull ax, but he who means to cut will
certainly use the grindstone.
In a few weeks now the parting of the way
will come. John will go to college and grind
away there for four years. Henry will go to
the shop, the store, or stay on the farm. Six
years from now Henry will be well advanced
in business and ahead of John. Ten years
hence Henry will still be trudging away in
shop, or Store, or field, and John will have
outdistanced him in real service, usefulness
and labor. Twenty years hence Henry will
tell you of how he and John were boys to
gether and how he made the mistake of his
life in not going to college as did John when
■opportunity afforded. The world goes on
telling that story year by year. Here is pity
for the boy or girl who has opportunity for
■college and does not use it. That person is as
doomed to remorse and regret in the years to
come as night is to follow day. We have
never seen a man or woman regret having
gone to college and learned. We have seen
thousands who have regretted with deep sor
row that they did not go to college. The wise
will take counsel of the past.
Your Denominational College. Archbishop
Parley, of the Roman Catholic faith, recently
-said this to an audience of Catholics in New
York:
“I cannot speak too strongly on the sub
ject of the necessity' of sending Catholic
-children to Catholic academies. There is, .1
regret to say, a constant and I fear growing
tendency to violate this most binding duty.
“Let no motive, social, financial, or polit
ical, lead you to fling your children into the
jaws of infidelity and atheism.
“Only a few weeks ago a mother came to
me almost in despair, entreating that a mass
be said for her daughter. She had sent the
•girl to a woman’s college—J will not mention
its name, but it was an institution on the
-order of Yassar, Smith and Bryn Mawr—
and in six months her faith had been tam
pered with to such an extent that she refused
to accompany her mother to confession on
Holy Thursday.
“Again I enjoin you, do not relax your
vigilance in this direction.’’
That is plain enough and Protestants may
well take warning of it. As a rule there .is
no place as safe for your son or daughter,
from a moral, social, and religious point of
view as your own denominational college
■school. There is there a sympathy, a fellow
ship, a spirit of fraternity ond cooperation
not to be found elsewhere. Commenting on
Bishop Farley’s remarks the New York
Christian Advocate (Methodist) gives re
marks that are sensible and seasonable to
this effect:
“We direct the attention of our readers to
this passage because quite a large number of
Protestants send their daughters to convent
ual schools. If it be so desirable that Catho
lic children should never be sent to Protest
ant schools,it must be equally so that Pro
testants who wish their children to remain
Protestants should not send them to Roman
Catholic schools, or to any schools—Roman
Catholic or Protestant—that would undermine
their religious faith. Parents have the right
to judge what religion is best for them to
teach their children. Bigots will teach them
to judge harshly all other religions but their
own. Persons without any religion will say,
“Children should never be taught religion
except in a general way, but allowed to make
choice themselves when they grow up.” The
true standard is this: That without inculcat
ing narrowness, parents should place child
ren where they will see the superior religious
advantages of their own communion, leaving
them after they shall have been trained to
retain or reconstruct their views by indepen
dent investigation as opportunity may occur
or the development of their minds suggests.
“Protestants, both men and women, could
do nothing better than to imitate the zeal of
the Catholics in several of their methods in
training up their children ‘in the way’ they
think ‘ they should go. ’ ”
The Law Is Enough. What Congress did
for closing the Jamestown Exposition on
Sunday is a plenty. Some around Norfolk
and interested in the Exposition now want
the gates open on Sunday—not for any harm
or Sabbath desecration, you know, but just
to use the grounds as a park. Certainly.
But, brethren, the cry comes too late. Nor
folk—what a pity(?)—will have to use some
other ground as a park for Sunday sight
seers. Congress put the lid on, and sealed it
hermetically, and it cannot be helped now.
The esteemed Landmark laments sadly thus.
“Only the law stands in the way of open
ing the gates of the Exposition on Sundays.
There is no other good reason why the public
should not be allowed to use the grounds as a
park on Sunday, the exhibits and amusements
remaining closed. The section of the statute
prohibiting such perfectly innocent use of the
grounds on the first day of the week js foolish
and oppressive. But it is the law, and Con
gress is not in session; so there is no way of
setting the prohibition aside.”
' Yes, only the "law, but that is enough. By
the way, “how come” The Landmark did
not tell Congress (when it was discussing the
matter of the appropriation for the Exposi
tion on the ground that the said Exposition
must close up on Sundays) that a “statute
prohibiting such perfectly innocent use of the
grounds on the first day of the week was
foolish and oppressive?” The Landmark,
like other friends of the Exposition, was
quiet then—and very anxious for the appro
priation, and with the appropriation came
Sunday closing. Good. The Landmark’s
lament is very, very sad and pathetic, but
nevertheless true in this, ‘ ‘ Only the law
stands in the way.” But that is a plenty,
for one time, thank heaven.
The Way of the Transgressor. Readers will
remember that when a few years since gam
bling was pi’ohibited in Chicago, certain men
bent on this form of iniquity at all hazards,
built and fitted out a gamblers’ ship which
floated on the lakes about Chicago, and there
the gambling by day and by night went on in
spite of all that Chicago law could do. But
at last this movable gambling hell has come
to ruin, and is out of commission. The De
partment of Commerce and Labor of the
national government investigated the floating
monster, and as a result has revoked its le
cense and issued a decree which nullifies this,
and all other boats that sail or float for the
same purpose. Assistant Secretary Murray
says, ‘ ‘ There will be no more gambling boats
on the Great Lakes unless they run in defi
ance of the law as pirate ships.” This bad
enterprise has come to wreck. Evil and in
iquity are so perverse and persistent that it
is always a source of gratitude and joy when
they are run to earth and annihilated.
Student# of the University of Pennsylvania
earned more than $25,000 last year.
I
*A DESTRUCTIVE CRITIC OF 2907.
(To the Reader of 1907.
Dear Brother: Although interested in the
able writings of the higher critics of 1907,
especially in their assumption of having dis
covered something valuable, as if the “his
torical method” were new in studying the
Bible, I confess I became somewhat drowsy
under their monotonous efforts to make the
sacred writings seem to abound in misstate
ments. But I gradually absorbed their
genius and spirit, and seemed to become a
destructive critic, though calling mvself a
higher critic.
While in this state of mind, sleepy though
I was, I seemed to live rapidly through the
centuries, century after century, until I
found myself moving among scholars who
dated their letters with the numerals, 2, 9, 0,
7.
. On seeming to be roused from a semi-con
sciousness, and supposing that a thousand
years had passed from the time I fell asleep
under the dreary chanting about the mistakes
of the Bible, I seemed to be walking among
the fancied alcoves of my library, now in
creased by the additions of a thousand years,
and coming across the following correspond
ence I give you the letters, believing that it
may be interesting to the reader to observe
how the reasoning of the future destructive
critic (writing *in 2907 of our times in the
spirit in which the destructive critic of 1907
writes of Bible times) will make the condi
tions of our generation to appear.
If we of the year 1907 know something of
the conclusions of the learned gentleman of
2907 to be false, whose letters I now reveal,
or if his modes of reasoning are absurd, or if
he lays stress on insufficient data in his. logic,
or, especially, if he is ludicrously given to
denying the statements of eye-witnesses to
the facts which we of our time know to be
true, these faults must not be attributed to
me: for I copy the letters and publish them
exactly as I found them a thousand years
before they were written.
J. J. Summerbell.)
Dayton, Ohio.
•Copyrighted by The Christian Sun. All
rights reserved.
FOURTH LETTER.
Kinkade, New Zealand, 30, 8, 2907.
My Dear Grandson, ?
That the barbarous age, 1907, of which I
have been writing, was also one of the most
egotistical of the worfiT^ln-story, appears
from a single fact: Notwithstanding great
vice in its own centers of population, great
sufferng among the poor at home, great de
bauchery among its richest families (all
proved by incontestable documents), the
Americans were sending missionaries to
heathen lands; and many of the Americans
seemed to have no special interest in the con
ditions of the laboring people at home, or of a
portion of the population still loweV than the
ordinary laboring people, called the “sub
merged tenth. ” It also appears plainly that
none of the “hgiher critics’’ of that time
had any interest in this part of the popula
tion. In fact, if we correctly decipher some
of the barbarous books of that time, there
was much amusement caused by a proposition
made to send some of the “higher critics” to
the heathen; to convince those benighted peo
ple that John did not write the fourth gospel,
that there were two Isaiahs, that the Scrip
tures were made up of books approved by
godly men and were really a library, and that
God did not definitely reveal to anybody
what books ought to be included in the Bible
(as these collected writings were called, just
as in our time). Some of the “higher crit
ics” thought that these facts ought to be
made known to the heathen, and, without
doubt effort would have been made to send
these important truths to them, had not two
hindrances prevented: (1) There was no
“higher critic” of that time who was willing
to go to the heathen, except at a salary that
was prohibitive; (2) The missionaries who
were already among the heathen objected to
sending such missionaries, on the ground that
such teaching would have no influence in
bringing theheathen to more important truth.
But the egotism of the period, as well as its
stupidity, is seen in the very fact of the prop
osition.
You must remember that our searches
into the barbarism of that period are made
with great difficulty, and we have been com
pelled to get the facts, sometimes, from dis
tant regions. Every scholar of our time is
aware of the tremendous heat of the year
1957, which destroyed most of the paper liter
ature. But in the western part of what wa3
then called Europe, in a village or city called
London, some of whose ruins are still stand
ing, there was published a periodical called
“The Christian Life,” evidently edited by a
higher critic of the period. It is supposed by
many of our literati that the copy of tne
paper that throws such light on the mission
activities of the year 1907 was saved from
destruction in the heat of the year 1957 by
its religious coldness. However, the majority
of scholars deny that a lack of spiritual
warmth would be a preservative against
physical fire: and it is really an unsettled
question how the paper escaped the great
heat. It would be interesting to state the
theories that have been advanced, to show
that spiritual warmth leads to physical
warmth; but you only desire the accepted
results of our investigations. The paper in
question is mostly printed under the charac
ters “June 1, 1907;” evidently a little more
than a thousand years old. It is now accept
ed by all scholars that the characters “June
1, 1907,” certainly reveal two facts. The
“1907” evidently refers to the number of
years elapsed since the advent of the Lord
Jesus Christ. This proves that some of the
people formally accepted Christianity. Our
scholars agree that the word “June” is de
rived from the name of the Roman goddess
Juno, the consort of the god Jupiter. This
'accurate reasoning has demonstrated to us
that the worship of the Latin gods and god
desses still prevailed in western Europe in
1907, where the paper was published. This
reasoning is corroborated, if corroboration
were needed, by the fact that in that same
country a small religious sect existed, which
refused to date its epistles and business pap
ers from the names of Latin gods, and said,
“first month, second month,” etc.
But it is admitted that the prevailing way
of dating the papers of the time was that of
the periodical, whose editorial matter on
mission I now quote:
. “It is announced that a commission of in
quiry, composed of fifty laymen, is to go out
from America to make a comprehensive and
exhaustive investigation of the work in the
foreign mission fields. The members are
asked to specially report on the following
questions.—(1) Is the missionary enterprise
necessary, or are the religions of the non
Christian nations sufficient for their needs?
(2) Is the work of the missionaries efficient
and fruitful? (3) What can be done to make
the work of the missionaries more efficient
and fruitful? (4) What increase is needed
in the way of men and money in order to
evangelize the world? The Commission is
the outcome of the recent formation of a lay
men’s missionary union in New York.
“Unitarians spend comparatively little
money on foreign missions. Yet it is a re
markable fact that while Unitarian Christian
ity is being freely and openly preached by
natives almost in every civilized country,
especially in India and Japan, “orthodox”
Christianity makes practically no headway in
these countries, notwithstanding the enormous
sums of money that are spent annually on
mission work among both the Indians and the
Japanese. This fact was emphasized and
lamented by prominent speakers at the anni
versary of the Oxford Mission to Calcutta
(founded twenty-seven years ago) held at
the Church House, Westminster, on Tuesday.
Lord Hugh Cecil said that neither India,
China, nor Japan v d be converted until
Christianity was j reached by the native
voice. At the present time it was very disap
pointing and disheartening that there was no
native bishop. The Bishop of Lincoln, who
presided, said it was sadly and disappoint
ingly true that the great religious systems of
the East were in an entrenched and unyield
ing position.” a .
You will observe, my dear grandson, that
the editor of the “Christian Life,” which
seems to have been a Unitarian paper of
some kind, writes as though he considered the
foreign mission efforts of his day to have
been failures. If that opinion be correct, we
may in part attribute it to the- honors that
were still given in that benighted age to the
goddess Juno. For on every page of the per
iodical making the attack on foreign missions
we find at the top the legend, “June 1,
1907.” And some of our most distinguished
scholars, in fact, the majority of them, con
(Continued on fifth page.)