S C R I B N E R ' S M A G A Z I N E Important ... - Rparchives.org
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S C R I B N E R ' S M A G A Z I N E Important ... - Rparchives.org
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August 27, 1913.<br />
A FAMILY<br />
PAPER.<br />
E D I T O R I A L<br />
NEW YORK, AUG. 27, 1913.<br />
Rev. Dr. Kuyper, of Hollund, has resigned his<br />
seat in Parliament. He was for a time Prime<br />
Minister. He is 75 years of age, not broken, but<br />
owing to increasing deafness, he has retired from<br />
nolitics. In his administration, the Calvinistic<br />
(Reformed people united with the Ultramontaine<br />
party, and overcame the party in power.<br />
* * *<br />
Any one who takes for granted a British Government<br />
contention must be right, and another<br />
country wrong, as for example our own, can<br />
study this:<br />
LONDON, Aug. 15.—Lieutenant General Chang,<br />
a delegate of the National Opium Prohibition<br />
Union, of China, who has been in England for<br />
three months endeavoring to induce the British<br />
Government to release China from her obligation<br />
to receive any more Indian opium, started today<br />
lor China to report to Provisional President Yuan<br />
Shl-Kai, the failure of his mission. In a statement<br />
issued to the British public today General<br />
Chang said:<br />
"Out people are deadly in earnest in their efforts<br />
to rid themselves of the opium evil and<br />
they cannot help feeling resentment against a<br />
country which is forcing upon us the very article<br />
by which we were degraded and disgraced. It is<br />
intolerable when we reflect that while we are<br />
sacrificing millions of revenue and hundreds of<br />
IWes in struggling against enormous diflaculties, a<br />
foreign country should force us to receive for two<br />
or three years longer the poison we so earnestly<br />
are striving to stamp out."<br />
The lieutenant general concluded by appealing<br />
to the British friends of China "to do their utmost<br />
to induce the British Government to join<br />
with us in removing the root of wrong and in<br />
•promoting righteousness in the world."<br />
Some of the Great Powers, including Britain,<br />
have not formally accepted participation in the<br />
Panama Exposition. We expect Great Britain to<br />
be represented in some way after all. Much is<br />
making along the Canada border at Erie and<br />
soints West along the Lakes, of the Perry Centennial;<br />
there are committees dealing with the<br />
celebration of one hundred years of peace between<br />
the two countries. The following appeared<br />
in The London Times some time ago:<br />
"The British delegation, headed by Lord Wearte,<br />
which has recently completed its successful<br />
and memorable visit to the United States, for the<br />
purpose of conferring with the American and Canadian<br />
committees on the subject of the approaching<br />
celebration of the first 'century of peace between<br />
the British Empire and the American Commonwealth,<br />
has brought back glowing reports of<br />
the enthusiasm with which it was received.<br />
The moment has now arrived when it becomes<br />
necessary to appeal to the liberality ot our own<br />
public for funds to carry out the important projects<br />
Included in the British programme for the<br />
celebration. These include:<br />
!• The erection of a memorial of the centenary<br />
of peace in Westminster Abbey. Permission<br />
nas been obtained from the Dean and Chapter.<br />
2' The purchase of Sulgrave Manor, Northants,<br />
tlie ancestral home of the Washington family, and<br />
''s maintenance as a place of pilgrimage for<br />
Americans in England, and as a fruitful symbol<br />
"f the kinship of the two ipeoples. An option on<br />
ttis historic property has been secured.<br />
•'• The foundation of a permanent Chair of<br />
Anglo-American History and the endowment of a<br />
scheme of annual prizes in the elementary and<br />
secondary schools for essays on topics germane<br />
to the objects of the celebration.<br />
The above programme, as was stated by Earl<br />
Grey, will involve an expenditure of between £50,-<br />
000 and £00,000.<br />
The committee ask for the prompt and generous<br />
contributions of the British public to the Centenary<br />
Fund now open. Cheques should be made<br />
payable to the order of the British American<br />
Peace Centenary Fund, any may be crossed 'Bank<br />
of England, Western Branch.' "<br />
The address of the British Committee, to which<br />
'contributions should be sent, is 189, Centralbuildings,<br />
Tothill-street, Westminster.<br />
:ic ^ ^<br />
The Panama question has brought in a cooling<br />
air. It served to revive memories of a certain<br />
merchant class during our Civil War and recalled<br />
the Alabama question. A cordial abandonment<br />
of the Panama question, and union by the Government<br />
in the Exposition would smooth out the<br />
wrinkles better than any thing now devised.<br />
Meanwhile whatever the Government may do, or<br />
the Tories and the Ship-men, nothing of all this<br />
will interfere with the relations of the two peoples.<br />
None f<strong>org</strong>et the spirit in the very crisis<br />
of the Civil War of men like Newman Hall, John<br />
Bright and the toilers of (Britain.<br />
* * *<br />
The female labor law of Nebraska, which<br />
went into effect July 18, has made it necessary<br />
in many instances to readjust the<br />
viforking hours of women in establishments<br />
affected by the law. The law declares that no<br />
female shall work more than nine hours a day<br />
or fifty-four hours a week. Nor may any<br />
female be "employed in any manufacturing,<br />
mechanical or mercantile establishment, laundry,<br />
hotel or restaurant office, or by any public<br />
service corporations," between the hours<br />
of 10 p. m. and 6 a. m. Stores which employ<br />
girls and women and are kept open late<br />
Saturday evening are forced to open later<br />
in fhe morning and give this class of help<br />
extra time off to avoid violating'tbe ninehour<br />
law. They open at 8.15 and close at<br />
9 p. m. in most cases, but they are obliged<br />
to grant several hours off duty during the<br />
day.<br />
Large employers of labor say that the<br />
new law will react on the very class of persons<br />
that it is presumed to benefit in the<br />
v/ay of short hours. The manager of one<br />
store that employs women said that it was<br />
sure to result in the increased employment<br />
of men as clerks.<br />
* * *<br />
Sometimes the very common things in life<br />
teach lessons of importance. A grocer has<br />
a short pound. He has bored out the weight<br />
and it represeu'ts fifteen ounces. The City<br />
Weigh-master oomes round, and the grocer,<br />
with great protestations of innocence, is.cited<br />
tO' appear in court. The people want,<br />
and are entitled to, a full pound, for which<br />
they pay. The dry-goods merchant may<br />
have a yard that short-measures. Presently<br />
he is detected. The buyer is entitled to a<br />
full yard. The public are on the side of<br />
the full pound weight and the full yard<br />
measure and justify the fine imposed. But<br />
when it comes to the full pound in morals,<br />
or the full vard in keeping God's law, sometimes<br />
even'the Christian will laugh at the<br />
light weight and short measure. He will<br />
break God's law, setting a wrong measure<br />
before others, and think he is someway exhibiting<br />
courage. He f<strong>org</strong>ets he is not giving,<br />
a full pound and a full yard. He is<br />
wronging somebody depending for light on<br />
his example, and the community in general,<br />
and God the law-giver. Either he is not wise<br />
enough to see it, or he is morally blinded<br />
and does not care if he does cheat, and dishonor<br />
God, and despoil society.<br />
While the public are on the side of the full<br />
pound, and the full yard-measure, they do<br />
not regard seriously (if they do not applaud,)<br />
the misconduct of the man whose<br />
life is a short pound and a short yard. And<br />
yet the latter is more destructive and ruinous<br />
from every point of view.<br />
THE LATE DR. MATHEWS AND<br />
PSALM SINGING.<br />
The Quarterly Register for August contains<br />
a notice of the late Rev. Ge<strong>org</strong>e D.<br />
Mathews, the General Secretary of the Alliance<br />
of the Reformed Churches. He was<br />
the editor of that periodical, the <strong>org</strong>an of the<br />
Alliance.<br />
He died in London on the evening<br />
of July Sth in the eighty-sixth year of<br />
his age. He was buried under the shadow<br />
of the ancient Parish Church of South Leith.<br />
His father was Scotch, and his mother was<br />
an Englishwoman. He had returned* but<br />
a few days from the Tenth Council in Aberdeen,<br />
and for forty years had been identified<br />
with the Alliance.<br />
He understood the early arrangement as to<br />
the praise service of the Council, made<br />
W'hen Dr. J. R. W. Sloane represented the<br />
American psalm-singing churches'. At the<br />
beginning and all through these years he<br />
saw to it that this service was by the use<br />
of the inspired psalms without instrumental<br />
music. The effect of the common method in<br />
this part of the service by choir and <strong>org</strong>an<br />
is seen when the large body of men from all<br />
churches cannot or do not lift their voices<br />
in praise to God; and while it seems to some<br />
to reflect on the method used at the Alliance<br />
meetings, it really reflects on the body of<br />
ministers and elders who have no voice to<br />
praise God in the use of his Word.<br />
* * *<br />
We have held back too long the following<br />
from the Religious News section of the<br />
Public Ledger of May 17:<br />
I. From the report of the meeting of the<br />
Lutheran Conference in Philadelphia on<br />
May 16:<br />
"Stirred by a proposed amendment to the<br />
church rules against oath-bound secret societies,<br />
layman delegates were present at the<br />
two sessions in readiness to defend<br />
the secret societies. Only a ' very<br />
small number of the clerical delegates are<br />
represented in the various societies, but tiie