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The Commoner
VOL. 15, NO.
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The Church at Work
N Tho churches of Atlanta, Georgia, arc show
ing the country what can bo dono by organized
Christian effort. They first bought space in lo
cal papers and attacked wrongdoing in paid ad
vertisements. When tho papers closed their col
umns they resorted to pamphlets the citadel
of free speech and now they are starting a
weekly paper of their own.
Tho following is a specimen pamphlet:
The Evangelical Ministers' association of At
lanta, In tho fall of 1911, appointed the execu
tive committee of the Men and Religion Forward
Movement. It has fifteen members, appointed
for a certain term, nine of whom are laymen, six
ministers, representing the Methodist, tho Bap
tist, the Christian, the Lutheran, the Presby
terian and Episcopal churches.
Its purpose is to provide machinery for the
co-operation of the churches in any line of work
that tho churches may undertake to advance the
Kingdom of God. It has proved effectual.
Since its inception, that co-operation has
caused the closing of tho "red-light" districts in
Atlanta and other cities.
It provided shelter and clothes for tho un
happy inmates of the houses who would accept
these when the houses were closed.
It led tho state to build the Georgia Training
School for Girls, where forty-two girls are now
living in a home valued at more than forty
thousand dollars, but whose real value can not
be estimated, so great is tho good now being
dono by it.
That co-operation opened a home in Atlanta
for girls without work and girls whose wages
aro too little to meet their needs, where sixteen
girls are now living.
It caused Felton county to open a decent place
of detention for incorrigible women.
It brought about the study of conditions
among convicts in Georgia, leading to a more
humane treatment of -prisoners and the begin
ning' of a change that will eventually remodel
the prison system of Georgia.
It led tho legislature to enact the probation
law, enabling judges and probation officers to
save first offenders from becoming habitual criminals.
It began the daily vacation schools in Atlanta.
These things have been done not by dictation,
but by learning the facts and laying them before
law-makers, public officials, and citizens and
asking them to consider them in the light of the
teachings of Jesus Christ.
One of the methods, used was publishing The
Men and Religion Forward Movement bulletins
in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in the
form of paid advertisements.
The facts so published as to tho fight made
on Chief Beavers for obeying the law delayed
tho disgrace of his removal for nearly three
years.
And the public had begun to learn that every
beer saloon and locker club in the capital of
Georgia and throughout the state aro breeding
anarchy and hate by their contempt for law.
People saw the fight in council, the defeat for
the first time of the efforts of many clubs to get
license. True, it was all later undone by trick
and trade, but oven little children learned the
disgrace of the liquor traffic being protected by
public officials paid to end it.
Tho legislature mot and was in the midst of
tho fight to end tho near-beer saloons and locker
clubs. Chief Beavers was closing locker-clubs.
Members of locker-clubs brought charges
against him. Members of locker-clubs were to
try him.
At this juncture, the Atlanta Journal and Con
stitution closed their columns to tho bulletins.
The editors of those papers say the bulletins
libel and injure Atlanta.
The Atlanta papers have made a mistake.
Many people have been misled. Yet papers and
people have had Atlanta's good at heart.
We ask you to consider co-operation.
A cotton mill is a marvel of this.
First, the agreement of stockholders, the in
Ycs taient;' then tho building and assembling of
the machinery fitting together to the fraction of
an inch; every cylinder and piston, every cog
and wheel, every band and belt, every loom and
flying spindle must work togother.
But a handful of emery dust thrown by a mal
content into the machinery will put the whole
plant out of business. First, knocks are heard.
If all Is not at once stopped until the gritty stuff
is removed, the damage is only the greater.
The foreign substance must bo taken out be
fore the mill can turn out goods.
A city is only a great manufacturing plant.
Men's minds meet. They pool their all. They
build a city.
Happiness is to be its finished product.
Each alley, each street, each block, each store,
each factory, each paper, each school, each
home, each man, woman and child are the living
works; they must move together; they must act
in unison as one.
When injustice, lawlessness and greed are
thrown into the city's life, like the emery dust
in the mill, they cut and mar 'the parts, however
perfect; jolts and Jars begin, and, in the end,
come misery, pain and shame; the longer the
foreign substance remains, the vaster the ruin,
the greater tho repairs that must be made.
Atlanta is the best of cities of her size.
But elements have been thrown into her heart
that mean her undoing unless removed.
If leaders in her social and business life con
done law-breaking
If they defy the law
If they connive at destroying a public official
because he has obeyed tho law
If other officials are forced to believe that fi
delity to a trust means loss of place in-the capi
tal of Georgia
What is the end?
The churches of Jesus Christ would not at
tempt to direct the political life and the law
making of our city and state. Neither would
they permit the executive committee to do so in
their name.
But the churches are in the city's life to give
light.
If that light discloses wroiig, let us remedy it
beforo it is too late.
Think not to cure the trouble by putting out
tho light.
The churches' purpose is to spread Christian
ity. Christianity is conscious co-operation with
God.
Never yet has it hurt a city. But every city
without it is doomed. It can not compromise
with crime. It will never condone wrong.
Atlanta is a Christian city.
Let us get together and get the sand out Of
tho machinery. . .
Breaking honest public officials
Muzzling the churches
What think you?
These are out of place, are they not?
Shall they go or stay?
Wo can not be silent. - . s
"We are witnesses."
Christ calls:
"Follow me."
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
Billy Sundayisms
Rev. William A. Sunday, the noted evangel
ist, is now conducting a series of revival meet
ings at Omaha, Nebr. Below are a few of the
bright sayings in which his sermons abound.
I want to strike a deathblow at the idea that
being a Christian takes a man out of the busv
whirl of the world's life and activity and makes
him a spineless and effeminate proposition.
Running away from the world in order to be
good makes religion a matter of place and ob
servance. uu
Religion does not consist in doing a lot of
special things, even though these special things
cilfway E8' bUt ln dlng aU thiBS in a BPe-
Men will gladly draw their check for m aaa
to establish a children's hospita? anS "el noth
ftV11 tT? fJCt that tho money ce out of200 I
000 made from a system of child labor which
s.-ssr (ood that swvss
Somebody needs to say it bo loudly tlmt n ,n
be heard around the world that ShSaSSg J?
religion, not only for the private life nf
but a religion to be translated into ever J S'
and corner of his life, public as well a8 JrivaS
Trying not to be bad is about the most ,im
cult and trying job in the world. St difil
Jesus did run around with a verv cm
sort, but when He left them they were not quito
so common as they were beforo He met E
and that is the acid test of your religion
When once a man's soul has been saved if i0
a good thing for him to say, "What shall it nroflt
L tost?' he SaVG hlS S0Ul bUt thG Wh0le vorld
A midget in mind and a midget in character
is like a carbuncle.
God likes to see a man leave the cellar and
go to the roof garden of life.
Those who. borrow trouble never get a chance
to pay it back,
Manhood and womanhood does not depend
on muscle. Apparent size is one thing, real size
is another. If you don't believe it, try to stop
a hornet with the end of your nose when he is
going a mile a minute.
One hundred years from tonight what differ
once will it make whether you are rich or poor
whether learned or illiterate! '
It is bigger to sit in a church than it is to line
np with the bunch at some bar with a French
plate glass in front.
It is a serious mistake for parents to want
their children to be reproductions of themselves.
Don't think they have to be like you; one of you
is enough.
You can keep a cow alive on potato peelings
but she won'tgive any milk, and when a cow
''stops giving milk her mission in life is at an
end. Tou don't keep cows for company.
Wish I could sentence fifty of the popular
writers of today to the penitentiary for the stuff
they write.
. Many young people are good in the beginning,
but they are like the fellow that was killed hy
falling off a skyscraper they stop too quick.
The newspaper today is a better college than
Abraham Lincoln had just the newspaper.
After all has been said religion is the meas
ure of concern of men it's the real base line
of character. Many may revile it, but in their
hearts men feel that in religion life finds its
highest expression.
Beauty ma please us, truth may strengthen
us, but goodness commands us. A genius charms
us, a philosopher instructs us, but a saint feeds
us.
Christianity has always been a personal re
ligion. Jesus was no organizer like Caesar or
Mohammed. He formulated no plans. He
founded no ecclesiastical system.
Men may dent the historical Christ or the
metaphysical Christ and leave only the ideal,
and they still have to reckon with a power of
the first magnitude.
There are multiudes of people who select from
the Bible what they personally like; they can
codify God and eliminate what they don't like.
Multitudes of people will not do things unless
they personally desire to do them. They don t
wait to think whether their doing them makes
it harder for somebody else to do right.
The element of failure is not confined to re
ligion. Ninety-five per cent of the business men
fail; 75 per cent of the lawyers abandon their
profession; 60 per cent of the doctors fail jo
make good. I think it is due, as in religion, w
lack of systematic work and no personal application.
. The fellow that tells me that he can live
Christian life outsida.a church I have no use w
I have no faith in him. 'He can't.
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