davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

later under Moody. the ictus of evangel- ism was conduct expressed in zeal for the souls of others; so now at last a new evangelism has made it's appearance. It's vision is far clearer into the relations ot human society and the limitations of the church. It sees that the whole of modern life, the whole business of industrial rela- tionship, must be subdued to the author
 ity of brotherly love. Here is real em- ployment for every convert. He can keep warm now instead of freezing in stln fornality or fin unwilling inactivity and icy propriety, He is not obliged to force himself to ask impertinent questions in order to prove his zeal for God. All that he has to do is to love his neighbor as himself. And everyone knows that that is a simple but terribly exacting task, quite big enough for any convert, even the most zealous. It cannot often be an off
 cal task, and yet 1t must be done by men and women organized in churches as heal CTS of men. If l understand MT. StelZle. this most simple and far-reaching and ex- acting task is the goal of his movement. He is doing for the average nearer, who won't read books. what Peabody and Ely and Rauschenbush have been doing for students and readers. Modern evangel- ism has for its aim. not the eniarging Of
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

mountains of north Alabama and in a re- zion where men least dreamed of such 8 possible creation. He had engineered primitive mail routes, first on horseback, and later by the rumbling coach, and widening the expansion of interest and eff fort by the establishment of timely hos teries, but here he was destined to crown his unusual career as the builder of a mighty city. Hence Birmingham.
 Tn the rush and rattle of a great mart such as Birmingham has become, those of later generation who throng it's streets of architectural magnifcence and gaze on It's piles of splendor. are apt to forget those who laid the foundation stones of the great municipality and made possible a. mighty urban center, destined to eclipse all others of the south in com pass and in the number of its people. Men are apt to tread with careless feet over the unmarked graves of the harbingers of that bequeathed to a later generation, forgetful of the brain which contrfved and the hand which executed.
 It is not the phrase of empty euloglum to speak of James R. Powell as one of the greatest. of Alabamians. Unlettered in the schools, he followed the unerring finger of transparent judgment, ana un- awed by formidableness Of difficulty or vastness of scheme he planned and wrought, both wisely, and propelled by pluck born of the enthusiasm of pa- tience, he succeeded. The career of a man like this In a generation, or even in a century, is a vital inspiration. and far worthier of record more elaborate than a brief and humble sketch like this.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

beyond the reach of argument. There can be no insstent appeal to the moneyed class for sanitary tenements, for mercy homes, for reformatories, and so forth for the reason that men already 'isaved' have little personal fear of the whips and scorns of that world they have turned their backs upon. Nor can any insistent clamorer touch the dead senses of the poor for long time. because the abject poor not only lack vision and striving. but they lack that subtle urge "to get on in the world" which must necessarily supplement incentive.
 Therein lies the most serious obstacle to forward stepping The two classes who most need social salvation are powerless to win. it for themselves, Strange as 1t may seem, those who are making the greatest clutter over the blind sordidness and vulgarity of the age are those whom the sordid and vulgar age do not menace.
 What we call the progressive" meaning the meddlesome person who will not let well enough alone-the cur ious person whom groove-living irks- is the cause Of all this hubbub. This
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

stuff about Joe Ann of Ark and Elize- beth, and Carry Nasion, and what they air doing in Californya and Kan sas. The first thing you know she has joined Club, and for a while she'll cum home and tell her husband all about the Stunts they advercate and make fun of them, and declare she has no sympathy with such move- hints, but all the same the Equal Rites Germ is working ovver time and she begins by trimming off three inches of her skirt and exposing to the admiring publick her number 7's, and befour you wake up to your dan ger, you discuvver that you air the legal husband of a full fledged Suf- feragett, who has forgotten all about the Ruddymints of Rubard Pie. but who can quote the Bylaws and Regu- lasions of the Woman's Leege of America by the Yard, and then folks wunder why Reno is so popular.
 In the centuries psst we have only
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18
English Bull Running
Q Detroit News Tribune.

From the Detroit News Tribune
 The Anglo-Saxon seldom yields first place to any nation. It may. however, DC surprising that even in the barbarous cru- city of his games, the fact remains the same, for the bull fights. so often held up to contempt and condemnation in Eng land and America, is outdone by the tra- ditional bull running at Tutbury."
 According to Captain Tremearne, F. R. c. s.. the bull was formerly provided by the prior of Tutbury' now by the Earl of Devonshire; which bull as soon as his horns are cut off. his ears cropped, hls tail cut out by the stumple, all his bouy smeared over with soap. and his noss blown full of beaten pepper; in short, being made as mad as is possible for him to be. was turned forth to be caught if possible, by the minstrels Not even in Spain-let alone Portugal or Ngeria-has a bull been so cruelty mutiated Nor did the cruelty end here, for if the wretched animal was caught before sunset he was brought to the bailiff's house in Tutbury, and there collared and roped and brought to the bull ring in the High street. and there bated with dogs and afterwards
 There was probably not much danger to the minstrels in this, but there were sometimes even milder risks to run, for lon occasions of rendezvous and public meetings of merriment In a village, the landlord of the alehouse will give tup (so they call ram) or a pig, well soaped, with the tail and the horns and ears re- spectively cut off.''
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

with the plan in view of founding here a large city, tile logical result of the im- mense resources embedded in the hills and mountains of this favored region. The Louisville and Nashville railroad had sup piled the missing link between the north and south, and Colonel Powell was among the first to see the possibility of a great city in this region. While the local and adjacent resources were then only imper- fectly known, they were sufficiently known to justify the colossal proposal of culean, but the projector was a man of wide experience in grappling with odds, and in subordinating to the mastery of his will the disputing difficulties. small minds quarrel and quibble over points Of inconsequence, while giants stride over them with serene non-recognitlon.
 Without tiring Colonel Powell gave the world accounts of the fabulous resources of the district of the prospective city. The facts first published throughout the Unit ed States and Europe were first regarded as speculative rose water. but they m truth represented only stiver of that which subsequently, came to be known.
 Birmingham was first stragglinS struggling village, penetrated here and there at irregular distances by rugged highways, the terror of the driver In rainy season. Diminutive houses dotted the scene over without respect to order or system. one small brick structure stood where now stands the Brown Marx building, then the most substantial expression of confidence yet given. High ways of deep red clay ran past the build
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18
OF SOCIAL UMPIRES-By A. B. Bealle

includes not only the reclamation of soorned persons, but compulsory common school educaton not only healing of that fostering wound on the breast of society which we lightly term white slavery, but an investigation from roof tree to rafter of all child labor-not in cotton mills only and sweat shops, but in department stores as well.
 Across the turbulent. days no voice up- lifts with couraged word-no Umpire yet with ultimate message for the republic. And yet the republic itself is a mighty school just now. Though convulsed with the worst passions, 1t holds hundereds of umpires in embryo who will emerge one of these days.
 It has been the way of the world to try love last. At the moment it is generally held that rigid segregation of the unfit, spiritual and moral, is the panacea for the saving of the healthy portion of sooiety--the unsoied portion of society. It may be that the very existence of that dogma keeps the dawn back. We have persistently encouraged bad men into a belief that they are wild men
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

magnificent evangelists still doing splen- did service.
 The church. generally speaking, is the last institution on earth officially to con- fess the validity of truth, except it be of the kind already stereotyped in dogma.ic phrases. It still has it's God and It's Devil, and it's language about both still hangs around the door steps of the 18th century The most stereotyped, the most archaic, the most backward of all the phrase makers of the church have been the evan gelists, who have simply tried to make the common folk believe, or say they be- lieve, the things expressed in those phrases. Truth is, of course, the supreme necessity of all souls. It is to the intel lect what love is to the conscience. kind of divine fire, or atmosphere whose invis- ibe flames are essential to life. But the horror of the souls winter Is when these flames are frozen into a species of tradi- tional capsule, to be carried around In evangelists' pill boxes, and prescribed by eager gentlemen with bad grammar. The antics of your professional mediocrity with much vociferation and no intelligence to speak of, have sufficed to repel and sadden the best friends of real religion.
 No wonder that when their clamor died
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

r r the reyolutionists of this world
 were not so terribly in earnest
 about refas ashioning society. the Bpectacle presented today would be nothing if not amusing. Through the masses of fighting men and warning actions, there comes a glint of the cap hnd bells. And though the air be ever so Fharged with iconoclasm, though theo- Fies may quite obsess us, there is yet testers tinkle somewhere in the world To save us from the Mulligrubs.
 Each prince and beggar about you today has his creed O life-some |ort of theory w'eich, grow into his confidence ever so little, he will exhibit Is an infallible cure-all for the dragons If the republic Just now we areplay- Ing with anarchistic theories as a child blays with bubbles. And though no |hore than a pin-prick will burst the hing of glittering pinks and whites Ind golds that we puff into the spaces bout us, we have at least had our play. That is what bubbles are for, I suppose. |t may be that we, idly venturing, throwing our bubbles out, may hit upon
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

NHE presentation of the name of Col onel Powell marks turning point in the history of the state. A new D had dawned of which Colonel Powell Is an exponent. The long agitation th which the country was rocked for cades had eliminated in bloody conflict hich was waged to exhaustion. The tur- Hence of rehabilitation represented in e struggles of reconstruction had fol- |ved, and the eyes of the people were lee more turned to the ways of peace Id re-established prosperity. Resources hctically immeasurable were untouched the soils and mountains of a great kte, and public thought began to peer to the future with a longing for tran lii prosperity. A class of men repre- hted by the subject of this sketch was demand and as is always true when demand exists for men they are to be Ind. Thus appeared this pioneer at the ieshod of a new era.
 native of Brunswick county, Virginia. l Powell, while yet a beardless youth, | ridden the distance from Virginia to
 abama on horseback. This was before
 Rbama has emerged into statehood. On
 faithful horse he reached the strag-
 ng village of Montgomery with less
 n s20 in his pockets. Entering on life . the new region to which he had come
 mail contractor, he gradually rose l the direction of line of stage coaches
 the transportation of mail and pas
 gers, and with a widening horizon of
 einess tact and comprehensiveness of
 erprise for which he was remarkable,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

away the church sank into a sort of stupor, nerve-wearled.
 But the cause of the fruitlessness, and so also of the discredit of evangelism, patterned after Moody rather than after St. Paul. lies far deeper, as hinted at the outset. Its aim was a wholly false aim, namely, the addition of names to the church roll. That was reckoned the one justification of all the preparation and all the expenditure of energy. There ys also 8 kind of intoxication in swaying crowd. On the other hand, of course the higher meaning of all this exertion was that so many persons, young and old, had made their peace with God and were now sure of heaven. But the conciusfon was too often jostled by experience to stand unchallenged. How many of us have wondered to find men and women whose faces once beamed with emotional and moral illumination, as they confessed to their conviction that they had now a
 full assurance" of salvation, cheating their customers as they weighed hay or butter, and slandering their neighbors with most diabolcal spite Others you have discovered stumbling along the de- vious ways of lcentiousness. drunkenness, the jocular frivolity of indecent speech,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

practice and training have maid them masters. Show me the man who can take one of our moddern creations of Feemail perfectsion by the hand and camly argue with her about the ad- antages of Resserprosity with Can ada and keep his mind on his job. On the uther hand, l ask you as a fellow creeture, and just between us girls, do you honestly beleeve that you could Cuddle up to Stern Blond who insisted upon talking Currensy Reform, and tickle her under the Chinlets and-call her Ducky, and while you were trying to make up your mind to kiss her, you would indulge your self with the faint hunch that she had been smoking cigarettes. Nix on Feemail polyticians, you mite try to innoculate yourself with love for one, but it wouldn't take.
 1 am opposed to votes for Wimmin for several reesuns, and they air that I beleeve that it will tend to
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18
THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL PROGRESS-By George Eaves D. D.

the church roll but cl ths church mem Der himself. It's deslre is not for the church, but for the kingdom. As of old. it comes preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. It proposes to subiugate all modern wealth to the service of the altar, that is to say, of the love of God in the temple of mans body.
 Industry must cease to sacrifice man to money. Manhood is the flower and fruit of the world The church is the instrtI- ment of such cultivation of the waste places of former desolatons' as that this flower and fruit will flourish there and the desert blossom as the rose. The more or less blind groping for social justice by the working men of Europe, Asia, Austra- lia, or America, Is to be reinforced and by the spirit and enthusiasm of the church. Jesus is to be incarnated in His people, not for yelling formulas of but for doing deeds of justice, through common ways indeed, hut also through senates, parliaments. relchstags and courts.
 And since have for many moons been saying such things in The Age-Heraid. it is cheering to find the Men and Relig- ion Forward Movement saying them SO powerfully to multltudes who act, but seldom think.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

Social Umpire-this petulant policeman -is not content that his world should stumble along blindly; he Is for rapping it sharply with his stick at times he is for making the social world walk erect, and not slouch and vince and cringe; he is for removing his worlds souls ankle-irons, and he is for releasing from whatever gals or chafes or impedes.
 These are but a part of the duties Of the Social Umpire. In whatever guise he may appear-whether as tariff ad- ulster or preacher of playgrounds for the poor whether as labor leader or as advocate of universal suffrage, he will be beset all along his path by the dragons. For dragons and rlffels do truly exist, though they may have lost their fiery eyes and furnace breath.
 We did not know there were any dragons till the bubble-blower came till the progressive came with his mill itant task of trust-busting-till the policeman came with his gossip of in- functions and writs of habeas corpus, numberless as the sands of the sea-.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

a few exampuls of where wimmin
 have taken the Inisiative and walked
 off with the part that Custom and the Creator assigned to the Trousers. As a rule she has been continued to rep resent the Referendum and the Re call, and exert her Masterly inflew- ance ovver man and thro' him accom- plish the ends desired, rather than go out and do them herself, and the world has maid wunderful progress under this system, and for our part we air opposed to enny revvolusion. We sum how prefer the old fashioned kind of woman, who used to worry her little Noodle Box fussing ovver the kind of feather she'd put on her new spring hat, and who continued herself with a close applycasion to the syence of making herself and her home attractive to her husband and her trends; who believed that her children were blessings sent direct frum Heaven that needed her own
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18
MEN WHO HAVE MADE ALABAMA-AMES POWELL-By F.

center of the habitable globe" wave of awakening light spread throughout the financial world, and Birmingham was se- cure.
 But new disaster arose. A scourge of Asiatio cholera smote the young city now struggling to the birth. The dead were numerous, and funeral pail hung over the town. Colonel Powell remained with Roman courage on the ground. car- ing for the suffering, burying the dead. and preserving order. Pestilence stalked along the rugged streets, and wasted at monday, but the faith of this man of iron nerve was unshaken. His courage stiff- ened that of others-his faith was con- tagious. No wonder that he came to bs called "The Duke of Birmingham No special shaft marks the recognition of this mighty builder of a great city, but the city attests his power. Tn the dim light in St Pauls, in London. the tourist reads tablet christopher Wren, builder. Would you seek his monument? Look around" Not otherwise Is the relation of Greater Birmingham L. James R. Pow ell. It's towering turrets and lofty buiid- ings; it's residence palaces and shaded streets; its smoking stacks and hives of mineral mines, and it's numerous railway lines with their cargoes of daily traffic. these are his monument
 That one so great and noh,e should come to death so novel and untimely is a mystery. He fell victim to a pistol fired by beardless youth in a Mississippi tavern, in 1SS3 For all the future his monument will stand. Alabama's sreatesl CitN.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

we could just see her eyes--exactly like Pets-above the table as she stood tp- toe holding on by it. Pet and her sister were so exactly alike and SO completely one that in our thoughts we have never been able to separate them. It would be mo- use to tell us that our dear child is a mere infant We have changed that child according to the changes fin fhe child spared to us. As Pet has become more and more intellectual and womanly, her sister has become more and more in- tellectual and womanly. It would be al hard to convince me that if I were to pass into the other world tomorrow that I should not by the mercy of God be re- ceived there by daughter just like Pet, as to persuade me that Pet herself is not a reality at my side''
 ''As Mir. Meagles said this he stood gravely looking into the sea at Mar seilles. The sun went down in red, green and golden glory The stars came out in the heavens, and the firefiies mimicked them in the lower air So deep a hush was on the sea that it scarcely whis- pered of the time when it shall give up it's dead"
 In the passage cited life after death is affirmed as an article of faith, and de- velopment of spiritual faculties in the world beyond as well. I have wondered how much, if at all. Dickens was indebt- ed to our poet Longfellow for this pas- sage. In Resignation we read: Mot as a child shall we again behold
 her;
 For when with rapture wild In our embraces we again enfold her, She will not be child: But fair maiden. in her Fathers man.
 sion,
 Clothed with celestial grace: And beautiful with all the souls expan-
 - sion
 Shall we behold her face'
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18
DICKENS AND THE BIBLE-No 2-By Dr. w. E. Evans

wild. and no night too dark. Through all he urged his way. until at last Emily's throbbing heart lay upon his broken heart. For years he had gazed upon the picture of the sacrifice, and it had become at last a part of the fibre of his life. I think that Dickens, when he wrote this, had in mind the good shepherd seek
 ing the lost lamb
 How tenderly is the principle of self sacrifice set forth in The Cricket on the Hearth, in dear old Caleb Plum mer, the father of Bertha, the mother less blind girl
 Who but Dickens ever thought of the exquisite self forgetfulness illus trated by the little lame boy. Tiny Tim :! On Christmas day Bob Cratehit took the little fellow to church and on the way home Tiny Tim said that he hoped people saw him at church because he was a cripple and 1t might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas 8 day who 1t was that made lame beg gars walk and blind men to see
 Of this same beautiful grace of char acter Lizzie Hexam's life was a heroic example. while to impress men with the dignity of self sacrifice he created Sydney Carton, whose death on the guilotne said plainly enough, Great CT love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend" You must have noticed that just be- fore the execution of Carton Dick ems quotes the words, T am the resurrec- tion and the life; he that believeth in me though he were dead. yet shall he live and whosover liveth and be- lieveth in me shall never die" You will also remember that Dickens makes no comment upon these words. They form no part of the story and are not attributed to any bystander. They stand alone. these words. and express
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18

the stoid darkness of indifference, or the thorny and perilous heights where men climb through blood to wealth. Evangel- ism was too often a spiritual life insur- ance scheme, with premiums paid in self ishness. Its language was too often close ly allied to unreality, and all unreality is cant. Yet surely the evangel is real enough! OnlX the average crowd of prop agandists were echoes, imtators, profess sionals.
 I think it was Evan Roberts. the psychic revivalist of Wales, who almost uncon- sciously began to call men back to the true principle. He kept on speaking or his discovery. He had learned from the chance speech of a gypsy woman, who said Good morning, sir" to him, a poor miner, that such kindly reverence to him. a. poor coal miner. warmed the whole ln- ner heart of him and brought tears to his eyes. This meant that the gospel that moves men is a gospel of self-reverence and reverence and love for all, irrespective of caste Anything that increases the love of men and their mutual reverence and kindiness is worth while therefore. And the deep mystery of the failure of evangelism stood revealed.
 Men had been converted to God, in