The Overflow
Take your choice
"About a hundred years ago brethren made the sad mistake of trying to activate the church universal and they created an organization which enslaved the churches." (Lanier .G,A., Oct. 13.) "These great and vital issues were discussed and the great restoration of pure Christianity was built on the foundation that such 'external cooperations' could not bring about any of these conditions pointed out." (Harper, Radio speech, Act. 2.)
As J. D. Tant saw things
A pleasant letter from Brother W. T. Buffaloe of Monette, Arkansas, gives this characteristic little episode from the life of a man we used to know: "The last time I saw and heard your father was in a place where I had once taught school. He introduced his sermon by stating, 'I have been through several insane asylums, but, before God, I never saw people act crazier than your children do here. They don't know how to get into the church house, how to act when in, or how to get out!' I wanted to shout, Amen!" Sounds like him, doesn't it?
How's that, again?
We've just received an official announcement informing us of the program for the "Fourth Missionary And Congressional Mother's Conference Of The Isreal Universal Spiritual Churches of Christ." They are to meet with the "Israelite Divine Spiritual Church" in New Orleans, and Reverend Mrs. L. Davis will be the Missionary President in charge, assisted by Reverend Mrs. E. Searcy, the Congressional Mother President. And that spelling is right: it's "Isrealite!"
What's in a name?
Brother Charles Crosier, preacher for the church in Kokomo, Indiana sends us a little squib about a medley of church names he has run across in recent months. It seems there is a "Reform" church near Mathiston, Mississippi; a "Getwell" congregation in Memphis; a "Crooked Creek" church, a "Boundary-line" church, and a "Mud-Lake" church, all in Indiana. Which leads Charles to suggest that if one doesn't "reform" and "getwell", he is liable to remain "crooked", or at least on the "boundary-line", and may eventually wind up in "mud-lake". Well, maybe.
Insulting the dead
We opine that many a Middle-Tennessee Christian must have gasped with incredulity, which turned quickly to resentment, a few weeks ago when he heard Brother E. R Harper gratuitously insult the memory of such men as David Lipscomb and Tolbert Fanning. This happened on October 2, when Brother Harper in a radio speech over WLAC at Nashville laid responsibility for the division over the Missionary Society squarely on the shoulders of those who opposed the Society. In discussing the division over the Society here are his exact words: "Those opposing cooperation among congregations of the Lord were forcing the issue to the dividing of the followers of Christ even though they were begged not to press these issues to such a drastic extreme." For a hundred years the Digressives have charged that it was the "opposers" of organized cooperation who split the church. Now Brother Harper has joined their infamous chorus of defamation of the dead; the elders of Highland Church, who read and endorsed his speech before it was delivered, share the guilt with him for such flagrant slander of godly men of old.
Fifty-a-month-club
One gospel preacher has written us that he has set himself the goal of "fifty-a-month" new subscriptions for the Gospel Guardian. We hope he reaches it — and that many others will set definite quotas for themselves; and help us to get the paper widely distributed among faithful Christians all over the nation. Geographically, we believe we are already the most widely read paper in the brotherhood; but in those churches where we have two or three subscribers, we'd like to have a hundred! How about it? If the Guardian is worth your reading, it is worth your efforts to get others to read.
Determination
It happened a few weeks ago in Mississippi. A well-known elder of a well-known church was expressing himself in vigorous and explosive terms relative to the present discussion of "church cooperation." Said he, "I've made up my mind that that problem will enter this church only over my dead body!" — And forthwith he authorized the purchase of over 5,000 copies of the Gospel Advocate for free distribution among the members of that congregation — apparently gloriously and blissfully unaware that practically every issue of the G. A. has articles setting forth teaching (usually false teaching) on "cooperation."
Paraphrasing Churchill
This little incident brings to mind an appropriate paraphrase of one of Churchill's famous phrases: "Never in the history of religious journalism has a paper had so many subscribers and so few readers who read so little of the paper they receive."
Logorrhea
We found a new word — logorrhea. It means a sluice of words, a veritable cascade of them. It's a disease. We know a "writin' brother" who has it. (He doesn't write for the Guardian.)
The answer is no
We've been asked again if Brother Otis Gatewood has yet offered any apology for the dishonest and deceitful trickery he used two years ago in trying to entrap the Gospel Guardian in the now famous case of the "check for Dick Smith." The answer is no. Neither have Broadway's elders offered any apology. We hardly expected one. Men who will resort to such a trick, or condone its use, are hardly likely to offer apology for their deceit when it is exposed. Their kind usually will ignore the whole matter, pretending ignorance of it.
"Dispute over 'methods' — how silly!"
"The world is on fire and we have the only water which will put it out. Yet, we set up opposing papers, and start arguing about how to apply the water, while the world burns down." No, gentle reader, this is not a quotation from W. K. Pendleton in 1855 defending the Missionary Society; it is a quotation from Brother Don Gardner in the Freed-Hardeman lectures of 1955. No comment.