Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1907-05-02

?. G. COLLINS. Cashier.

throughout a people it has made of
that nation a mighty and a moving
element in the political history Of the
world. Applied to the lives of men
and women in whose hearts the love
OF Gods law was uppermost It has
given to us our Luthers, our Wesleys.
our Lincolns, our noblest and our
best.
But it is within the space of the
past century and half that the true
mission Of the gospel has been COM
pretended and advanced. Little
more than a century is it since our
first plans were considered to send
Protestant missionaries to the East.
To-day we have the missionary of
Christ in every land. The message
of salvation through the Son is reach
Ing round the world.
But let us for the moment forget
the things which are behind and
look rather upon the present condi-
tion of humanity. Let us consider
our duty as those who are mot
ashamed of the gospel Of Christ to
carry that gospel into every acting,
longing soul. What application has
the gospel to the needs of to-day?
How can we make it force in the
lives Of men and of nations.
We find ourselves confronted by
diverse and distracting social condi-
tions. The tendency Of the times is
toward congregation in large cities.
The olden country life becomes dis
tasteful, and men in the rush to gain
livelihood flock to the cities. Let
us take as an example the City of
New York. Here are some of the
richest Of the rich, the poorest of the
poor; palaces, novels; luxury and OK
travagance, penury and destitution;
costly cathedrals erected to the glory
of the living God, and beneath their
very steeples disreputable dives dedi-
Gated to all that is bestial in man.
Commercialism is the watchword.
The city, as the land, is money wild.
The spirit of combination is abroad,
and we see huge gatherings of untold
capital to control the industries of
the world. Capital fears labor and
combines against it. Labor distrusta
the concentration of wealth and at
tempts, with but moderate success,
to protect itself from it's fancied en-
emy. The immensely rich live their
lives with but small care for or
thought of the wretched existences
worked out by their fellows in the
slums. Vice shows it evil head at
every turn. There is in New York
single square, within the bounds of
which reside over 1000 human be-
ings, who live under the most dis
heartening conditions. To our shores
have come multitudes from every Eu-
ropean nation, from nearly all the
countries of the world. We have our
"little Italy," our German colony,
our French quarter, our Chinatown.
Upon the same page of daily news
paper we may read heart burning &C
counts of the unutterable misery Of
| multitudes of our poor, and the story
of how one man is attempting to con-
| troll the supply of the diamonds, or
the gold, or the steel, or the rubber.
or the railroads of the. earth.
| Thus, in briefest, are described
| some of the conditions that make the
social problem so disconcerting. Let
us consider now our duty as men and
women who love our Lord to carry
| His gospel of light and of life to a
world that is so sorely in need of it.
The prime duty of the church, here
as elsewhere. is to instil into the
hearts and minds of men the aeces-
sity and the joy of the presence of
the saving power of the Holy Spirit
! in the individual life. That's the
spiritual function of the church. The
| ethical duty of the church is to i'm
press upon mankind the true relation
| of man to man and to God.
Inorder to impart her fullest influence
it is necessary that the church be filed,
individually and collectively, with the
deepest grace and the noblest love
for man. BY the exercise of the true
principles Of the Christ ideals in the
4 commonplaces of life, the charge OF
inconsistency must be nullified. AS
body and as individuals the church
must be a brotherhood which. meas
ured by it's own ideals, is worthy
To the church do the people look fo1
the purest, the most unself1sh leader
ship. That the depth of the spiritual
life within the church is sure lnd1'
cation of the height of the morality
of the people is demonstrated by the
ages past. Upon us as Christian
men devolves the privilege so to mole
the national mind that the law OF
the universal brotherhood OF mar
may become the law Of our nat1ona
and International life. We must con
vince the poor of their duty to the
rich; we must convince the wealth!
of the dignity of labor. Ours is tht
obligation to hasten the millenlun
of peace through the universal apph
cation Of the law of love. To accom-
plish this purpose we must obey, il
o,,r dailv lives that command of thu