Edgefield advertiser. (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, October 18, 1922, Page TWO, Image 3
Sermon by Rev. Arthur T.
Allen.
"The Present Crisis."
(Continued from first page.)
us with His hour." He has caused us
to live just at this time, because He
has a specific task for us to per
form and place to fill. He has match
ed us with His hour and a critical
?hour it is in the life of the World.
Some years agc Colonel Roosevelt
made a new division of the history
of the world. He divided it into three
great periods in 'cern?s of bodies of
water. First was the Mediteranean
era which died with the discovery of
America. Then came the Atlantic
era, dating from Columbus to mod
ern times. But ss.id he "The Pacific
era, which is about to dawn, will be
the most significant and epochal of
all." I venture tc go a step further
and say the future of the world can
not be described in terms of one body
of water. The International era is
already a reality and we are on the
verge of a Spiritual era, when those
close beside the Meditteranean, At
lantic and Pacific will be welded to
gether in a great fellowship of ser
vice, in the colossal task of laying
?new the foundation of a redeemed
humanity when the prophecy of
Tennyson will have fulfilment and
there will come into being a Parlia
ment of Man and a Federation of the
World and when the Paradise, which
was lost at the gate of Eden, will be
found. Never, since the Morning
Stars sang together and the Sons of
.Cod shouted for joy, has there been
an hour so stupendous, so fraught
with tremendous possibility, so red
olent with rainbow promise, so vi
brant with volcanic movement as the
one in which we stand. No wonder
John R. Mott said "He had rather be
living in the next ten years than at
any time he had ever read of in the
?history of the world." But its great
ness will not consist in the volcanic
and cateclysmic change which char
acterizes it, in what the deeps may
, cast up or what may be gotten out
of it, but in its potentiality, in what
may be put into it and it may be
made to mean under God. Agassiz
said "Don't talk about gravitation
and evolution. They are pens in an
unseen hand. Talk about the hand
that holds them." So I would say
wake up and see what God is doing.
are me outpuijnngs 01 wnat Lowen
spoke of when he said:
'KJareless seems The Great Avenger,
History's pages but record,
One death grapple in the darkness,
'Twixt old systems and the world."
The task that awaits the ministry
of the twentieth century manhood
and womanhood, on the face of
which opportunity is written large,
is the rebuilding along new lines of
a shattered civilization. And please
God, out of the ruin of old cathe
drals, cut of the wreck of hoary po
litical systems, out of the chaos of a
worn-out, burnt-out civilization will
emerge a New Heaven and a New
Earth wherein dwelleth righteous
ness. But, if this ideal is to be real
ized, we must understand and be able
to interpert the spirit of the time in
which we live and realize the task
for which we have come to the king
dom. When the Roman Empire was
falling before the invasion of the
Barbarians we are told that Romu
lus Augustus, the last of the Roman
emporors, retired to the Ravenna
where he amused himself with his
poultry. His; favorite rooster was call
ed Roma in honor of the capitol.
When he was informed that the
city had been captured, thinking
only of his rooster and not of the
capitol he said "Why just a moment
ago he was eating out of my hand."
So little did he know or care about
the crisis. Akin to this was the per
fidy of Nero, who it is said fiddled
on his fiddle while Rome burned and
the flames licked up from the dust
of the streets the innocent blood of
Christians. But Romulus Augustus
and Nero are not alone in meriting
our scorn because they centered at
tention on private and frivolous af
fairs. There are those today who fid
dle as it were, while the world is on
fire and our most sacred ideals, tra
ditions and institutions are being re
duced to ashes. There are those who
have eyes and see not and have ears
and hear not and manifest an obtuse
ness to their day of visitation. It is
not to the praise of the pulpits and
-colleges of America that we were tak
en by surprise in 1914. Where were
the prophets who studied and under
wood the great moral under-currents
of their day, who stood in the watch
tower and gave "warning as the He
brew Seers did in their time?
And now that the world has been
made safe for democracy, if we call
it so, what are we doing to make de
mocracy safe for the world, to put
into operation a mighty crusade to
clean the Augean Stables of our civ
ic and social and governmental life,
and to establish the ideal of Lincoln
in his great Gettysburg address that
"The dead shall not have died' in
vain and that governmefnt of the
people for the people and by the peo
ple shall not perish from the earth?"
It does not take a prophe'; or the son
of a prophet to read the handwriting
on the wall and discern some of the
signs of the times. If we put our
lear to the ground we can hear the
beat and pulsation of humanity's
heart in a great groundswell of soul
revulsion with the spiritual aspects
of our life. The best intelligence and
piety of today is disgusted and
heartsick with the old order. Presi
dent Harding, a few months ago
was standing by the bodies of those
brought back from France, said with
tears, "It must not happen again,"
but it will happen again. What will
prevent it? It is not enough for us
to say "it must not happen again,"
unless we are willing to do our part
and pay the price to lift the life of
our people to a higher spiritual level,
to secure to posterity the sacrifices
of our valiant and honored dead and
to incarnate in our life those lofty
ideals, by which a few years ago we
professed to be actuated and with
which our banners were emblazoned.
If the world is to be rid of bloodshed
and class hatred, if capital and labor
are to live together in peace and we
are to work out beneath the folds of
our national emblem a common, glo
rious destiny, old ideals of selfishness
must be given up and new ideals of
brotherhood, good will and godliness
be propagated. The untoward condi
tions which we view with alarm today
were created by false ideals-by the
belief that life is an end in itself,
that it is essentially selfish and com
petitive, that it must have itself on
force and violence that nations must
arm to the teeth, that capital and la
bor must organize to fight and that
the physically fit alone survive. A
study of the critical periods whether
of our own or some other reveals
thal; whatever the problem it is .al
ways created by a lack of vision, a
_?,"e>o?. ?i v^nitoitau. xiiat JS ene
thing we face and the task, for
which we have com?; to the kingdom.
The call of the hour is for the ap
plication of the principles of Chris
tianity. That is needed in all phases
of our life. There is no line along
which it is not needed and would
not work a transformation.
I. It is needed in our industrial
life. That need is thrust with special
smphasis upon our attention today.
We are in a position to appreciate
it. The contest between labor and
capital is being waged largely out
side the church's influence. The world
of organized labor is either prejudic
ed against religion or indifferent to
it. Capital may profess allegiance to
it, but does not live in accordance
with its profession. This creates an
impression of hypocrisy which is
worse than indifference or hostility.
We may not*say how near we may
approach an adjustment of the dif
ferences of employer and employed
without . the aid of religious influ
ence. Intelligent selfishness may go
along way in that direction. Capital
may see that it can get more out of
the laboring man by yielding up cer
tain things to him. Labor may cal
culate how far it can discreetly go
in its demands. Indefinite improve
ment may be made in this way, but
no problem is solved finally till it is
solved right. We do not get anywhere
by ignoring the foundation and that
which is the crux of the whole busi
ness. All we do is to drag along with
ns the very thing we are trying to
get rid of and leave behind. Selfish
ness is on unstable basis on which to
build. On it no permanent super
structure of industrial peace can rise.
The industrial fabric reared upon it
will crumble and totter and fall. As
long as one tenth of our population
owns and controls seven-tenths of
the wealth and uses that power not
to promote the common weal, but to
bring all opposition to its knees
economic conditions are not likely
to be better. However, in the work
of reformation we must begin at the
heart instead of the pocketbook. Our
life is paraylzed today and we are all
pinched and feel the effect not of a
lack of distribution of money, but
because of a lack of distribution of
religion. We suffer and the body so
cial pains to its finer tips not because
men haven't got money in their
pockets, but because they /haven't
got God in their hearts. That is why
those in positions of power and au
thority who could do something are
willing to play politics with the sit
uation and commercialze and exploit
the anguish and woes of the people.
The trouble is not that there is no
solution to the problem and no way
out has been found, but because we
haven't accepted the way of Him
who is the way, the truth and the
life.
It is not our business to dabble in
the details of a controversy between
labor and capital, but we ought, with
all the emphasis at our command
press upon men, with the authority
of God, the only enduring founda
tion of industrial peace, that justice
which- is based on the tenets of the
ten commandments and Golden Rule.
That rule of justice is needed not
only in eternity, but in time, not
only as a theory, but as a practice
among all men toward all men. With
out the recognition of that princi
ple and its divine authority there can
be no enduring peace. The only
solvent for our ills is the righteous
ness of God made real in the lives
of men by the power of Jesus Christ,
When that becomes a reality we will
be in a position to go on to the prac
tice of the Golden Rule and the
Brotherhood of Man.
II. It is a time of crisis in our
educational life. As we look about us
what do we see? We see ignorance
and superstition still widespread. We
see the readiness with which false
teachings gain adherents. The peo
ple still perish for want of knowl
edge. But the real conflict is not
with religious teachings ruled by su-,
perstition. It is not with ignoranc?
although those who live by it have
only a crude kind of enlightenment.
These are not the dangers of the fu
ture. The progress of learning will
eliminate them. The conflict of the
ages is between religious and enlight
ened unbelief. The darkest cloud on
our educational horizon is the intel
lectual infidelity permeating the uni
versities of Europe and America. Dr.
Nicholas Murray Butler, president of
Columbia University, warns against
it and calls it the New Paganism. It
is accompanied by a crumbling of
the moral sense. Honesty and truth
lose their beauty and appeal. Along
witk if ic +VIP Atheistin "F.vnl
of God. Dr. Swete of New York tells
of an eastern professor who habit
ually begins with his new students
by trying to destroy their faith. He
calls it cutting them loose from
their mother's apron strings. I am
sorry to say that whatever cuts a
boy loose from his mother's apron
strings cuts him loose from God's
heartstrings. The mother's apron
string is the strongest life line there
is this side of heaven. Whenever it
is cut what it done cannot be undone
and that life, like the bird with a
broken pinion, will never soar as high
again. And yet that is the stuff that
the minds of American youths are
being bathed in. Today, on the other
side of Mason's and Dixon's line,
there are young men in Seminaries
studying under men who deny the
Virgin Birth of Christ and therefore,
His deity, for His divinity is bound
up with the Virgin Birth. They risa
or fall together. These men deny the
inspiration of the Scriptures and hoot
at the miraculous as ridiculous. Yet
parents send their children to such
schools, indifferent to the atmos
phere in which they are placing
them. I believe in Christian Educa
tion, but let it be Christian. If it is
to call itself that, let it live up to its
name and send our boys and girls
back to us imbued with the desire to
serve. The church should support its
schools, but this is not all. She is to
assume the intellectual leadership of
humanity. In the face of ignorance
and the chill of unbelief she is to
hold aloft the light of Him who light
eth every man coming into the world.
Out in the forefront of human prog
ress she is to carry the symbol of
Him from whom alone comes the
truth that makes men free.
HI. It is a time of crisis in our
civic life. It looked one time as if
the war would be worth all it cbst, in
that; it would produce a revival of re
ligion. Noble qualities were called
out in the characters of the people
by die stress and exigencies of those
times. Sacrifice, courage, patriotism
and the readiness to serve-all these
shone forth with heroic splendor.
Men became loser. Their thoughts
'turned toward the Eternal, their
hearts bowed in prayer to God. How
could these qualities fail to enrich
the lives of the people and bring
about a revival of religion? Yet, ta
's
day what do we find? There is an un
wonted activity of the forces of evil.
The crime wave has awakened na
tional concern. I 3ee no sign of abate
ment. It gives no appearance of re
ceding or having spent its force. It
does not seem to be what we call it,
a wave rolled up on the sea of our
life, but a part of that life itself and
here to stay. Murder, robbery and
theft are alarmingly prevalent. Dis
honesty is common. More men are
having to close up and go out of bus
iness than ever before and when one
does we s?y the times have ruined
him. No, it is not the times every
time, but the people. He can not pay
his debts and satisfy his creditors,
because the people do not pay him
what they owe him. They splurge
around in automobiles and he foots
the bill. Of course there are people
who owe and can't pay, but some,
who can will not. There is something
wrong with the man who can and
wont. Moral degeneracy flaunts itself
in the face of the public and is by
the public allowed. Homes are dis
rupted by the conjugal infidelity and
a determined effort is being made to
take Sunday out of the American
calendar.
What does it all mean? It means
for one thing that the war did not
.bring the millenium. It was necessary
It was glorious. It saved us from the
threatened danger. It vindicated
our cat?se, but it did not secure the
future. It did not make the world
safe for democracy and after all war
can never do that. The safety of de
mocracy and every other interest
worth while is ultimately in the cus
tody of spiritual forces. It would
seem that the nation that can build
the largest ships and maintain the
largest navy would be the most en
during, but it is not.Those who clam
or for a large navy as a means with
which to preserve peace, forget that
this did not prevent the most terrible
war the world ever saw, but contrib
uted to it. They lose sight of the fact
that preparedness does not consist in
battleships, aeroplanes, munitions
and submarines. Germany had all of
these in abundance and yet lost out,
because she was not prepared. She
failed in the realm of the spiritual.
Her ideals of right and wrong were
perverted. The only thing that can
save us is applied Christianity, to re
construct our life on new founda
??fMB-IT t? ??????-EU--- '
in that it would give them the oppor
tunity to build a newer and better
London. Sir Christopher Wren drew
up a plan with St. Paul's Cathedral
as the center. It was sanctioned by
the city fathers. The people were en
thusiastic about it. But when the de
tails of the plan began to be worked
out so many people insisted that
their houses be exactly where they
were before that in the end a newer
and better London was built. They
rebuilt on the old foundations. The
war cleared the ground. Are we go
ing to rebuild on new foundations a
new civilization? If we make Christ
the center of it, it will be glorious
and abide. If we m?ake our homes,
or selves the center it will be a mis
erable failure. That is the task of
which we have come to the kingdom.
Will we be weighed in the balance
and be found wanting?
In this task as individuals each
one* of us have a part If we shirk
or are not true, our children's chil
dren will not be proud to recount
the part we played. Dante lived
amid the strift of parties, the Guelph
and Ghibelline. In his Divine Comedy
he found no place in Heaven, Hell or ?
Purgatory for the one who held
aloof, the wretch who never lived,
because he never knew the fierce
pangs and ecstasies of partisanship.
He was doomed to wander homeless
on the outskirts of Limbo. The mor
ally neutral are alone worthy of con
tempt. There is no place in this
world or the next for the man who
tries to straddle the fence, who re
fuses to unfurl his banner and show
his colors and take a stand. He is
doomed to live unhonored and fetter
ed and to die unlamented and un
sung. On one occasion Hitcher was
conducting an Oratorio. The orches
tra tuned up and the soloist sang a
few bars of "I know that my Re
deemer liveth." Ritcher stopped her
before she was through, looked at
her and said "Daughter, do you
know?" She faltered a moment and
replied "I think I do." He said,
"Well you did not sing as though
you did." They began again. This
time she put every fiber of her soul
and body into it, "I know that my
Redeemer liveth." He and she were
in tears and when she was through
he walked over to where she was and
kissed her reverently and said
"Daughter I know you know." Oh,
let us throw ourselves into the cur
rent of His purpose and will with a
martyr's passion, with the unreserva
tion and abandonment of those who
know that their Redeemeth liveth
and on the earth again shall stand.
And when He does-when He does,
we will stand with Him.
FOR SALE: Several tons of fine
peavine hay and several tons of
grass hay. Maye offer delivered at
Edgefield. ?
CLEORA STOCK FARM,
Cleroa, S. C.'
10-ll-2t.
Eyes scientifically examined and
glasses properly fitted.
GEO. F. MIMS,
Optometrist-Optician,
Edgefield, S. C.
Only One "BROMO QUININE"
To get the genuine, call for full name, LA'A.
TIVE BROMO QUININE. Look for signature 03
E. W. GROVE. Cures a Cold in One Day. Stops
cousb and headache, and works off cold. 25c
Teachers' Examination.
The next teachers' examination
will be held Friday, November 3rd,
and Saturday,- November 4th. There
will be questions for three classes of
certificates: Primary, which entitles
the holder to teach first five grades;
elementary, to teach first nine grades
and high school which covers eleven
grades. Work will begin at 9:30 a.
m., and close at 5 o'clock p. m. Ap
plicants who expect to complete the
work must be on time. White appli
cants report at high school building;
colored applicants, at Macedonia.
W. W. FULLER,
Co. Supt. Education.
10-4-3t
Executrix's Notice.
For convenience, I 'have placed the
store accounts of the late J. D. Hol
stein, Sr., in the hands of Mr. O. B.
Anderson and all persons indebted to
said estate on said store accounts
are respectfully requested to make
payment to Mr. Anderson.
Lou B. Holstein,
Executrix.
ELECTRIC
SITTEBS
The Best Tonic,
. Mild - Laxative,
Family Medicine.
COME TO AUGUSTA
FOR THREE DAYS OF
JUBILEE AND FUN
FASHION SHOW
BAND CONCERTS
STREET PARADES
COMMUNITY SINGING
GRAND BALL
FREE SHOWS
AUTOPARADES
BIG CARNIVAL
Remember the Dates, Oct. 25, 26, 27
All trains will lead to Augusta. Special rates on all rail
roads coming into Augusta. Three days of fun, and not a
dull moment during jubilee. Augusta is prepared to take
care of thousands of Visitors, and all who attend jubilee
week are assured of great welcome. Thousands of dollars
have been spent to make the affair a success.
n History of the
is Assured
We Can Give You Prompt Service
on Mill Work and Interior Finish
Large stock of Rough and Dressed Lumber on hand for
Immediate Delivery.
Woodward Lumber Co.
QUALITY-SERVICE
Corner Roberts and Dugas Sts., Augusta, Ga,
Consult Your Own Interest by Consulting Us
When Buying
Roofing Metal or Composition
Mantels, Tiling, Grates
Trim Hardware
Wall Board
Doors, Sash. etc.
FROM
Youngblood Roofing and
Mantel Company ?
635 Broad St. Telephone 1697
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA
? ,i