Newspapers / The Christian Sun (Elon … / Oct. 2, 1907, edition 1 / Page 1
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IX ESSENTIALS—UNITY, IN NON-ESSENTIALS—LIBERTY, IN ALL THINGS—CHARITY. ESTABLISHED 1844. GREENSBORO, N. 0., WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1907. ’ VOLUME LIX. NUMBER 38. All communications, whether for publica tion or pertaining to matters c« easiness, should be sent to the Editor, J. 0. Atkinson, Elon College, N. C. EDITORIAL COMMENT. Fatal Fanaticism.—You may put it down that all religious fanaticism finally fails, but before- doing so proves itself faithless, foul and fatal. Fanaticism always runs to seed, but many of the seed are always bitter and deadly. ' From the Dowieites and divine healers of Zion City have sprung several factions, since the death of Dowie. One of these factions is known as the Parhamites, founded by '^Charles F. Parham, he and his 200 followers all having been members of Dowie’s church. Of this number, five are now under arrest for manslaughter, accused of having tqrtured to death Mrs. Letitia Greensaulgh, sixty years old. Two of the accused are the son and daughter of the deceased. Mrs. Green haulgh had suffered greatly with rheumatism and paralysis for twenty years. The five accused, after prayer by the old lady’s bed side, jerked and twisted her arms about that the devils might be driven out. The tortured and suffering woman cried and shrieked, but the cries were considered those of an evil spirit. When she became helpless they twisted her neck. The five thus tortured the suffering soul till she died. They then said she “sleepeth” and would soon come to life and eat supper with them—the death was about noon. When the fanatical son, who had assisted in torturing his mother to death, realized that death had really resulted he broke down and confessed all. The police did not hear of the murder until about 36 hours after the occurrence and then ordered an investigation which brought out the above facts and re sulted in the arrest of the five for manslaugh ter. We have been told by one who knew Alexander Dowie in his earlier days that be yond question he was a good, pious and de vout man, but that his burning zeal for sen sation and fame led him into a fatal fana ticism. And the ambition to be noted, fa mous and much talked of has led more than one man astray even in the religious world. It is always dangerous to distract thought and speech and public opinion from higher and holier things and get them, or endeavor to get them, centered on Self. Fact is our religion in the good old way has been tried a long time, and has stood many, many tests through the- changes of time—and it stands, it abides, it remains. Better hold to it yet awhile, we trow. Railroads and Newspapers.—Mr. John C. Drewry, President of the Raleigh Evening Times Publishing Company admits that he and his paper accepted $6,000.00 within a period of ten months last year ‘'for adver tising, special notices, etc,’' which were to be inserted from time to time in said paper. • The facts came out in the investigation by the State of the Southern’s books at Wash ington last week. The matter appears all the worse because Mr. Drewry was State Senator from Wake County in the last Leg islature and because the paper in the State receiving the next highest amount for adver tising received less than three hundred dol lars, and the Washington Post, at the South ern’s headquarters, Washington, received less than two thousand for the same period and purpose. With the exception that Sen ator Drewry declares that he did not use a cent of the six thousand .in his campaign for the sengtorship, and, that while in the Senate he returned $2,000 to the Southern, the matter is in as bad plight as enemies ac cused and asserted. It is all a pity, a great, grave pity. It is discreditable alike to Mr. Drewry, to the Southern Ry. and to the news paper. It is not a railroad’s businss to sub sidize, or with money purchase or control the pages of newspapers whose pages and policy are, or should be for the dissemination of news and impartial information. The newspaper thus influenced will not be re spected by the public, or relied upon for fairness and faets. The railroad that spends its money like that can hardly hope for the sympathy and co-operation of the public it is to serve. And here is deep and sincere regret that among our North Carolina pub lishers and public men there is one who drives jai gains like this. At this time of heated feeling and dis turbed public opinion about rates and rail roads, it is indeed deplorable, or to exclaim with The Charlotte Observer, It is tragedy, such as makes the heart sick. Russia in The Throes.—Russia’s ignoble failure in her conflict with Japan two years ago was not the end, but the beginning of her deeper and more desperate trouble. The people of that vast empire—an empire having the enormous population of 129,562,718 and embracing one-sixth of the land surface of the earth, or an area of 8,650,000 square miles, thus being three times as large as the United States, exclusive of Alaska, and is the largest continuous area of any realm in the world—are restless, angry and deter mined. They are struggling toward the light. They want political freedom and many of them are determined to secure it at all haz ards. The straggle is internal, the warfare within. The outside world does not know, what an upheavel’is even now taking place in distraught Russia. According to police Statistics 309 persons were assassinated in Russia during the month of August, of whom 107 were government officials and 202 were citizens. Out of the number of those committing the crimes only 31 sentenced to death were executed. That is to say, about one in' ten who now commit murder in Russia are brought to trial and executed. This means that government offi cials are faithless, police officers wink at crime, and constables have turned cowards. Russia is in the throes and nothing iesstnan a bloody and desperate internal Struggle is going on there to-day. The history of Rus sia that is being recorded now is being writ ten in blood. Catholic Strength and Folly.—Rome’s strength has always been in its exclusiveness. It is Rome or nothing, Catholicism or iniqui ty. It was built, and yet abides, more upon what it denounces and denies than upon what it proclaims and promulgates. It is rule or ruin, reign or resign always with Rome. Among the latest from the Pop*> and Rom an authority is this pronunciamento: “After Easter next, marriage between Catholics and Protestants in Protestant churches or in registry offices, or with a Protestant minis ter officiating will not only be sinful but in valid, and persons . contracting such mar riages will have gone through an empty cer emony and are no more man and wife than before.’’ That may hold good in exclusive Italy or France or Spain, but in this land where men think some for themselves and where the government is not Catholic alto gether we fancy such marriages will be valid and so held by the State, Pope or no Pope, Rome or no Rome. We agree that such mar riages should be avoided—those with Rome directly under Roman authority, for the chil dren born to those thus wedded are claimed by Rome to belong to the Catholic church. To “see some one off” from the railway platform in Spain you have to pay a penny. If this were the rule in America maybe so many loafers would not crowd our railway stations and platforms on the arrival and de parture of trains—especially on Sundays. The_ corner stone of the Episcopal Cathe dral of St. Peter and Paul at Mount St. Al bans, Washington, D. C., was laid last Sun day, President Roosevelt and the Bishop of London, with other distinguished guests de livering addresses. In architecture and out lay this cathedral is to equal the most mag nificient in the world. President Roosevelt was scheduled to speak as follows this week: Monday at Can ton, Ohio; Tuesday at Keokuk, Iowa; Wed nesday at St. Louis.; Thursday at Cairo, 111., Friday at Memphis. Tenn.,—and then Satur day to disappear in the Louisiana cane breaks for a lT-day camping and hunting trip. *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. -AH rights reserved. * TENTH LETTER. Kinkade, New Zealand, 30, 11, 2907. My Dear Grandson, In this letter I must continue to state some of the forms of corruption and vice prevail ing in America in the year 1907. But it seems to have been the custom of all so-called civilized nations, in that year, when an innocent person had been accused and tried for some crime, if he was finally found “not guilty,” to allow him to bear all his expenses. Yon can readily see the wicked ness of the governments. They would stain a man’s name with the indictment for a crime, deprive him of his liberty for months and sometimes for years, and finally discharge him as innocent, but ruined financially. This was so common, that no one considered it any thing to be changed: the masses and rulers were so depraved. In America the kidnapping of children fras practiced by criminals. Sometimes it waS* very profitable to the kidnappers. One butch er, by the name of Cudahy, paid the kidnap pers $25,000 for the return of his son. This practice of kidnapping must have made much suffering: for even barbarous people and an imals love their young. But the bloodthirstiness of the United States appears from one custom so incontesti bly that the very thought that the people of 1907 were called civilized may excite .roars of laughter. You will remember, my dear grandson, that in ancient Rome, in the am phitheater, lions, tigers and other wild ani mals were slaughtered, sometimes by .gladia tors, and sometimes by each other. The Ro mans looked on by thousands, enjoying the bloodshed. It is now pretty well proved that the United States was a country adapted to the raising of stock; cattle, horses, and other kinds. The stockyards of a city,called Chi cago were said to be the wonder of the world. The farmers of the west raised cattle, hogs and sheep for these stockyards. These facts must be borne in mind when considering the barbarous custom I now describe: In a city called New York there were great contests of bulls and bears on what was called the stock exchange. I discovered no journals, in my researches, that described the species to which the bulls belonged, nor the bears. But that makes little difference, although the conflicts seem to have been chiefly between the bulls and the bears; al though I have sometimes found sentences speaking of “great slaughter of lambs.” You will observe, my dear grandson, that the ancient Romans were not so brutal as to set lambs to fighting bulls and bears. This one practice of the Americans shows their bar barism. And yet the lower critics of our generation are so foolish as to reason, from the name of the scene of the fights, that the stock ex change was not a place for bloody battle, but a place for the exchange of the stock: bulls for bears, and bears for bulls; that the owners traded these animals. They exchang ed the stock. But this interpretation, though seeming plausible, cannot be accepted: for the “slaughter of the lambs” is often referred to. Also, we have found a few allusions to running the bears to cover, and stampeding the bulls. Such language refers evidently to combats between the animals. It is amazing how the Americans could practice such things. Whether bull fights, cock fights and dog fights also prevailed in that republic is not now known. But it is certain that a combat called the prize fight was largely popular. This seems to have tak en place between selected citizens, in the presence of thousands of spectators. It is apparent that gloves were used, probably to protect the hands of the fighters, for it is certain that edged weapons were used, on account of our finding the expression “ un dercut” in the fragments which still remains to us of the accounts of these battles. Whether the chief magistrate of the re public willingly engaged, or was compelled to engage, in these battles is not clearly reveal ed; but it is probable that he attained to his eminence by success in them: for the histor ical fragments that remain to us distinctly mention that experts of these battles were re ceived by him with distinguisred honor, and he is represented in several historical pictures of that time as carrying a big stick. This may have been the weapon with which he defeated his antagonist #in his final battle for the presidential honor. But it must be ad mitted that this point has not yet been ful ly settled: for the chief magistrate is always represented in these pictures as having a fierce expression of countenance; which would be inappropriate, if he had just gained a glo rious victory. But notwithstanding uncertainty on some unimportant points, you can easily see, my dear grandson, that “the historical method’’ as used by us higher critics is an invaluable way of discovering the truth of the past. We call it “historical,” because we usually dis card the direct history given by witnesses of any event, if it is unusual or remarkable, and always if it is miraculous, and then rea son about what occurred, by applying our own knowledge, prejudice, observation and ex perience to isolated words, fragments of mon uments, cotemporaneous history or absence of history, and names of the past. The key to success in the use of this method is to re ject the plain meaning of the history, wher ever desirable, and show how the historian was prejudiced or mistaken, or that the his torian in question never wrote it, or that the history was written by another person of the same name. This usually so confuses the vic tim of our logic that he surrenders some" of his faith, and in turn becomes a critic. This system always attracts attention to the critic as an independent thinker. Our opponents, however, sometimes assert that our style of reasohing can be ^worked in any ■ ge to overthrow belief in well known facts of that very time; fa'cts well known by all to be true. But our opponents only show their own ignorance and cruelty, in making such statements. Your affectionate grandfather, Higher Critic. There have been fourteen arrests in connection with the Pennsylvania capitol “graft”—and the bond of each accused placed at $60,000. \
The Christian Sun (Elon College, N.C.)
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Oct. 2, 1907, edition 1
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