Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1910-09-13

they intend such consequences or not,
that is what their movement would final
ly lead to, If they were permitted to have
their way. But the churches do not in
tend to let them have their way. The
churches are going to maintain Christian
schools in our land to the end of days,
and out of such schools will come minis
ters for their affairs and servants of the
most high God.
Secular education is very modern
thing, and the misguided men who are
disposed to magnify it above all the edu-
cational work of the churches must find
before many years have passed that they
have made serious mistake But
whether they discover and correct their
error or not, the churches are going to
continue in this business of religious edu-
cation; If they did otherwise, they would
perish.
And it is well enough for christian men
and women who have means to bestow
upon christian enterprises to have their
attention drawn to this important sub
ject. Such people desire able and edu-
Gated men to fill the pulpits of the
churches in which they go to worship
God and hear His word proclaimed. But
in the absence of distinctly and emphat-
ically christian schools they can not
have such ministers in their churches.
Hence, it behooves them to endow and
Sustain the schools of the prophets
Some time ego l had occasion to ap-
peal to a man who had always given
literally to the erection of Church build
ings, asking him to contribute to the
building of new church in his city. He
gave a contribution smaller than had
been the size of his offerings on former
cf nd IN MI - NIa
fact said, IT have given many thousands
to build churches during my past life
but for the future 1 am going to spend
most of my money on efforts to make
preachers to preach in the churches. We
have too many big churches unless we
had more big preachers to fill them.
propose to put the bulk of my gifts
henceforth in our church schools" There
is much in what he says. Pigmies in the
pulpit are not very edifying. They ex-
ecute a ceremony, brt they can not pro-
claim successfully the gospel of the Son
of God. A runt with a ritual is a sorry
substitute for a prophet of God.
The country church and the church
school must have especial and generous
care: the col1try church to give birth
to the preachers we need, and the church
school to train them for their work.
1t deserves also to be said that the
revival seasons in the churches are most
fruitful of preachers. During the presi-
dency of DR.. Timothy Dwight at Yale
College, he held thirteen revivals, out
of which came more than two hundred
preachers. Out of that venerable insti-
tuition, in the days Of it's faith and chris
tian zeal, these preachers poured into
the newly opened Northwest Territory
to fill the churches created by 1.-THE great
revival of 1907 which swept over that
region. The christianity of the Middle
West owes an unreasonable debt to the
preachers who went thither from the
revivals of Yale while DR.. Dwigh. was
president of the Institution. 1t may be
doubted if the richer and more worldly
Yale of today influences the nation half
so much, or half so benignly, as did the
evangelical Yale of Timothy Dwights
day with it's great revivals among it's
students More is the pity!
From our over-opulent universities. so
sadly commercialized by the subsidies
of goddess wealth, we can expect little
in the way of replenishment of the min
isterial supply of the churches. Many
of them are as mercenary as the market
place. and out of them issue more ath-
letes from one class of st(1ents and eff
terminates from another class, than come
preachers. From some such institutions
come rationalists, who call themselves
preachers. but who proceed to show that
they do not believe enough of the Bible
to furnish themes for so much as one
year in the pulpit these are they who
lecture on Teppyson. Browning, Shakes
peare, and other like themes, and call
their pretty prattle preaching. From
all such and the plague, good Lord deliv-
err u.s.
But to the old fashioned COUNTRY
church and the old fashioned christian
college we look as to the hills whence
cometh our help.