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November 19, 1913.
A FAMILY PAPER.
GHRISTItN NATION PUBLISHING GO.
1105 Tribune Building, N. Y.
ro 1 T ORIAL
John W. Pritchard, Editor.
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 19, 1913.
Considerable interest is taken in the prospective
"Billy" Sunday campaign, which is
to be inaugurated in Pittsburgh in December,
and continue for eight weeks. Arrangements
to that end were made on Tuesday of a recent
week. As is his custom, Mr. Sunday desired
to have the churches closed on each Sabbath;
but this plan was wisely opposed by
the Evangelistic Committee, and it was finally
agreed to divide the city into eight divisions,
and have the churches in each one of
these divisions closed on each Sabbath, and
have all the otber ones open. In a city as
large as Pittsburg, it would be a great mistake
to close the churches oin an occasion
like this.
The Christian Instructor of October 28th
contains the following:
'After advertising The Christian Instructor
for several months, and making earnest
efforts to dispose of it on satisfactory terms
to parties in different centers of the Church,
the Board of Publication received an offer
for the same from Rev. R. J. Miller, D. D.,
and after due consideration accepted his proposition.
According to the terms of this
transaction, (the ownership and icontrol of
The Christian Instructor is transferred to the
purchaser at the close of the month of October,
1913. All unpaid subscriptions are
now due and payable to the new proprietor.
"E. .AI, MILLIGAN,
"Business Manager."
ACCEPTED RESPONSIBILITY.
"As announced above, the ownership of
The Christian Instructor has been transferred
to the undersigned, the transfer being made
by sale and purchase. There are those to
whom this announcement will bring disappointment,
their desire being that the Instructor
might be transferred to some other center
of the Church. No one would have re-
.ioiced more than the writer, had the Board
been able to make such a transfer. Only
when this seemed hopeless, on what seemed
to be an equitable basis, did we make the
proposition which, after careful conside'ration,
was accepted.
"R, J, MILLER."
Dr, Miller is the editor of the Ckristian
Union-Herald and has been editing the
Christian Instructor since it was rescued from
perishing at the close of 1912, being taken
over by the Board of Publication. The General
Assembly of this year directed that it be
•disposed of by the close of this year, or
dropped. Dr. Miller is a brother of the late
Rev. J. R. Miller, so long connected with the
Presbyterian Board of Publication, The
newspaper he now purchases has had a long
and honored history.
PRESENT DAY iMOVEMENTS,
In the course of a letter to us, Rev, Dr.
James Martin,, the Alissionary at Antioch,
Syria, of our brethren in (jreat Britain and
Ireland, writes as follows:
Alount Lebanon, Syria,
October 15, 1913,
In a letter on "Union in Missions," which
I posted a few days ago to the editor of
The Christian of London, I made an apt
quotation from Uie Christian Nation on the
falsfe unions now advocated. This indiscriminating
"union in missions," now being promoted,
is of quite ruinous tendency, and itspath
is Rome-ward; but, craftily, via Prelac\-,
• * =•- Of all the evils of the
time I suppose the Great Antichrist is the
most serions and menacing. White it has
latterly been growing "worse and worse,"
and has been making its statutes and their
sanctions more stringent than before, the
mas.s of so-called Protestants seem to imagine
that the beast's teeth have been drawn
and that he has cast his claws. Only let
him get the opportunity, (and the blindness,
apathy and deceivableness of Protestants
seem to be preparing for him the opportunity),
and the beast of Rome will give the
so-called churches and the world such a display
of his character as he never gave before,
although already he has "shed the
blood of the saints like water," Thus if the
British throne were occupied by a Papist,
the Irish Papists would not ask for "Home
Rule" at all, Itis purely a "religious'' (strictly
(nifj'-religious) move; to restore a temporal
power and kingdom to the Pope, and drive
Protestantism and Protestants out of Ireland,
and set up in Dublin the sort of
government there was in Rome before
C^aribaldi entered there. There wo.uld
be no dan,ger of war between Germany
and Great' Britain only that more than
one-tbird of Germany is Romanist and those
Papists really rule the government of Germany,
and the Pope would like to get up
another war against Protestantism and its
Bible, as the Papacy of 1870 got up the
Franco-Prussian
war.
AVHY NOT SING PSALAIS?
The eloquent pastor of the Fifth Avenue
Presbyterian Chnrch, New York, the Reverend
J. H, Jowett, D, D„ in a lecture at
Yale which is now published in his book eiititled
"The Preacher; His Life and Work,"
gives his opinion of the hymns, from which
we take the following extract:
"Alany oi the hymns we sing are artificial.
They are superficial and unreal. They frequently
express desires, that no one shares-,
and which no healthy, aspiring soul should
ever wish to shaie. Some of our hymns are
cloistral, even sepulchral, smelling of death,
and are far removed from the actual wa.ys of
intercourse and the throbbing pulse of common
need. The sentiment is often sickly and
anaemic. It has no strength of penitence or
ambition. It is languid, and weakly dreamy,
more fitted for an afternoon in Lotus-land
than for pilgrims who are battling their way
to God. And yet these hymns are indiff'erently
chosen, and w e use and sing them with
a detachment of spirit which makes our
worship a musical pretence."
If some Psalm-singer had said this it
wc/,itld be regarded as. the language of ignorance
and prejudice, the evidence of a lack
of taste and of s.piritual appreciation. Of
course Dr, Jowett does not have this opinion
of all hymns, but who is to judge but the general
Christian public, and we see how unsafe
that judgment is by the hymns that are popular.
Why not sing psalms ?
IMMUNITY.
The investigations of recent years seem to
have established the theory that diseases result
from microbes which, in one way and
in another, find lodgment in the body. There
are microbes in the air we breathe, microbes
in the water we drink. Daily we breathe
and eat and drink the germs of many, if not
most of the diseases, to which human flesh
is subject. If any one is. in search of the
germs of typhoid', tuberculosis, or diphtheria,
he need not search hisi neighbors to get his
samples, since he has them in stock.
Why is it then that we do npt have all
these diseases.? Not through any lack of
the seeds on hand, but because they do- not
,get into fertile soil. The body, if in good
liealth, has its own health officers on guard
and they arrest these incoming germs and
make them harmless. But if the body is in
some way weakened so that at SD|me point
the health officials are oft' duty, then the immigrants
that we have taken in set up a
business of their own. Each germ has its
O'wn culture, the particular soil in which it
grows hest and the obly safety of the body
is to prevent this growth. Try as one may
he can not prevent the entrance of the enemies,
but he can fortify the weak places so
that their assaults shall be harmless.
AA'hen one has strengthened the body
against some special enemy he is said to be
immune to! the germ which causes it. We
cari not escape the attack altogether, but we
can make it fruitless. We take food, exercise,
fresh air, and much good advice, for the
sake of getting this immunity, since it is
much easier to prevent the disiease than it is
to cure it when once it has broken through
the defences and makes war on the centers
of life.
Jesus was immune to sin. It was all about
him }'et it could never get a lodgment because
his soul was in perfect health and al-