The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-08

the Alabama Conference M. K. church, south. at Enterprise this week, by Judge William II. Thomas of Mont gomery, Ala.)
 The history of the education of peo- pie is the history of its civilization. Its civilization Is measured by its in- tellectural, moral and religious life.
 The casual observer has marked the intellectual and moral evolution of mankind as he progressed from the barbaric state. Long did man find himself coming to higher ground, not suspecting how he was driven by an inner consciousness demanding that his needs be known and strength tried in it's relation to the aggregate experi- ence, or by how much he was led on by the faith and hope of the social mind.' Looking back on his progress from the hil1-tops, he comes the more to realize how the sensual was sub ordinated to the intellectual, and how the intellectual appealed to and grew into the spiritual. If, in the journey of my people, the moral should not be the gleam beyond the physical--should not keep apace with the intellectual, it is because that people have looked too much to the material for hope ana let go the faith in the spiritual.
 View Point of Ftistory'
 Intelligence. virtue and industry gives man power over himself, and therefore of all things; we must then agree with Bishop Spalding in the statement that education makes him intelligent. yirtuous and industrious. When the law of progress is known 1t will be but the finding out the inter dependence of all things; God revealing himself as his work is unfolded in the mind or heart of man." and in the course of nature. This process or unity of development that is world wide," is said to have been the con- trolling idea of the nineteenth cen tury. To know anything, then, Is to know how it came to be what it is; to know the facts of it's process or growth. "Hence the viewpoint is that of history"
 In the preface of "St. Marks Rest" a little volume on Venetian art, MT. Rus kin says: Great nations write tneir au- tobioGraphies in three manuscrlpts-tne book of their deeds, the book or tneir words, and the book Of tnelr art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three the only quite trustworthy one is the last. The arts of a nation may be triumphant by it's good fortune; and its words mlsaity by the genius of few of it's children; but its art only by the general glfts anu common sympathies of the race. Agaiii' the policy of nation may be compelieu' and. therefore, not indicative Of US true character It's words may be false, While vet the race remains unconscious or tnelr falsehood, and no historian can assureoly detect the hypocrisy. But art Is aiWays instinctive: and the honesty or pretense of it are therefore open to the day. Ihe Delphc Oracle may or may not nave been
 .riA tell by the words of it; liar may ra- tionally believe them a lie, such as he would himself have spoken; and true man, with equal reason, may believe them spoken in truth. But there is no question possible in art: At a glance (when we have learned 10 read) we know the re- ligion of Angeleco to be sincere, and ot Titan assumed'
 Commenting on this dicta, MT. Wilson in "The Variety and Unity of History, says: .'Whether we agree with all tiiis interesting passage or not, the nam truth of it is plain. It is to be doubted whether the .'genius of few of it's children sui fees to give a nation place in the great annals of literature, and literary critics would doubtless maintain that the booN of a nations words is as naif and instinc- tive as the book of it's art. undoubtedly the hook of a nations art and the DOCK of it's word must be reaqk@along with tne book of it's deeds if it's life and character are to be comprehended as whole; ana another book, besides, the book or us material life, it's foods, it's fashions, It's manufactures. it's temperature and sea sons. In each of these great books the historian looks for the same thing: the life of the day the impulses that unuer- lie government and all achievement all art and all literature, as well as all statesmanship.'
 And in this connection the great eau cator should have added, "and it's re- ligious belief
 True in the same treatise from which we have just quoted, he remarks, Re lision, as the historian handles It, lh- wolves both a history of institutions, or the church, and a history of opinion.
 Religion must then take prece- dence of law" Tor, the churci has unouestionably played a part second only to the state itself in the organiza- ton and government of society, in the framing of public life.
 Alabama Is Missionary Field.
 If. then whatever the viewpoint 1t is that of history, how important does the history of our own educational movements becomei How it must stir to renewed el- fort,-how pointing to higher ground, It rolls back the limitations of former horl- zons, if we but wisely trust days jour ney and press on -
 Let us then take a birds-eye-view of the earlier educational activities of the Meth odists in Alabama, for they are but chap ters in the history of the Methodist church and a factor in the history of nearly 100000 people. From an early date our church has regarded educa- tional effort as one of the most potent agencies, and to that end has given the might of her influence. The recital of the story of this phase of Methodist activity in. Alabama can but be a revelation and an inspiration; making us proud of our educational history, but it will be power ful reason for renewed vigor in meeting our new duties in respect to educational advancement
 In May, 1903, one claiming to be Methodist was preaching to the settlers in the Tombigbee and the Tensaw coun- try, and his fidelity for the work and sincerity of his claim is attested by the following sentence on page 164 of MT. Dow's journal: "A collection was offered me- but I did not feel free to accept it; and I left the settlement, procured some corn and had not a cent left"
 On January 9 1S0S Bishop Ashbury at Charleston, $. C., called for volunteers to an appointment as part of the Oconee district and Matthew F. Sturdi- want volunteered, was elected to the elder ship as a Bigbee missionary to sec