Southern Christian Advocate

NOTE AND COMMENT.

Happy New Year to all our readers. Cannot words of kindness be substituted for the evil-speaking which makes dissension? The Book of books demands it.

In a few weeks we will be installed in Columbia, and will be delighted to see our friends. Our Sunday School literature for January, 1899, has been received. It is, as always, excellent.

A good beginning is a great advantage. The old saying is not true. Start well and keep it up.

Dr. S. A. Steel appears in the North Mississippi Conference appointments as missionary secretary.

Letters for the editor of The Advocate should be directed: Columbia, S. C., care The State Company.

District Stewards of Columbia District will notice that their meeting has been postponed from January 10th to January 25th.

Holier Life and Happier Labor for Christ! Let this be the New Year resolution of us all, and let us strive that both be realized.

Bishop Fitzgerald is writing a book, "The Men and the Times I Have Known." Our mouth waters for the treat in store.

Send subscriptions to The State Company, Columbia, S. C., and send a multitude of them. Let us put the Old Southern in the homes of all our people.

We will be glad to have news from the churches and contributions from friends, but let them be short! Our new form is unfavorable to the use of lengthy articles.

If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay to you, and what people think of you.—Charles Kingsley.

Dr. A. H. Mitchell of the Alabama Conference joined the itinerant ranks in 1831. He is ninety-one years old. In 1836-8 he was in charge of Cokesbury Manual Labor School in this State.

We are indebted to Dr. H. F. Chrietzberg for a copy of the minutes of the Western North Carolina Conference. A tasteful pamphlet tells the story of a successful year and a pleasant Conference session.

O, for a year of harmony and peace in the Church of God! It is dissension in her pale that accounts for the small gains of recent years. Strife brings blight everywhere. Peace prepares the way of prosperity.

An exchange says: Bishop Candler is to deliver the Avery Biblical lecture at Trinity College next spring; Bishop Duncan is to preach the baccalaureate sermon, and Bishop J. H. Vincent the literary address at the commencement next June. A rich bill of fare, indeed.

We may create, every six days, a new world. If last week was spiteful and full of hate, next week may nevertheless be a new week, filled with the richness of love. If last week was deceitful, uncharitable, and unforgiving, next week may be a Christ week. The day of rest stands guard between the weeks, and each Monday there may be a new heaven and a new earth.—S. S. Times.

The Richmond Christian Advocate says that Bishop Fitzgerald is credited with a neat definition of an "independent paper." If political, it carries a Republican flag and shoots into the Republican ranks or vice versa. If pious, it lives off of Methodist rations and shoots into Methodist pews and pulpit.

We acknowledge, with thanks, an invitation to the wedding of Rev. John R. Sojourner of the South Carolina Conference and Miss Blanche B. Browning, daughter of Hon. and Mrs. T. S. Browning of Berkeley County, S. C. The marriage took place December 27th. We extend our congratulations and welcome the bride, whom we have known from her infancy, into the traveling connection.

"I have seen some Methodist preachers put on airs and strive to take care of their dignity. They say that they have a metaphysical mind, and that the Lord never called them to waste their precious time doing pastoral work; that they are not trained that way; that they are called to be oracles, and to dispense knowledge and wisdom; but, my beloved, if the Lord never called a Methodist preacher to be a pastor, he called him to nothing. Go to see the people; some of our best sermons have
had their genesis in our visits to the sick saints of God.—Bishop Duncan to Western Texas Conference.

Our friend, The Baptist Courier, has been so very kind that we break our rule barring pleasant remarks about the editor and Advocate, and republish his farewell notice. It almost repays the pain of parting to hear such encouraging words. The following is the notice of The Courier:

"The Southern Christian Advocate will be published hereafter in Columbia by The State Company. For several years it has been published in Greenville by Col. James A. Hoyt. We are sorry to see our neighbor with its editor leave Greenville. Years ago we learned to esteem and love the genial, gifted and consecrated editor, Dr. John O. Willson, and as the years have come and gone the ties that bound us to him have strengthened with these years. The editor of The Advocate and the editor of The Courier were pastors together in Charleston for several years; we were there and worked together in the great Moody meeting; in the earthquake days we stood side by side and preached to the people out doors on the college campus, and it was a pleasing coincidence and a happy circumstance that brought us together in Greenville in the editorial work, where our relations have been so close and fraternal. We bid Dr. Willson Godspeed in his great work, and express the wish that his removal to Columbia will be for the furtherance of his work and the comfort and happiness of himself and family. The Advocate is a good paper, and it ought to have a large circulation among the Methodists of South Carolina. It is a power for good in the homes of the people, and it always stands for righteousness. We understand that important changes will soon be made in the mechanical arrangement and make-up of the paper. To The Advocate, its beloved editor and corps of writers, and its great constituency, The Courier sends the greetings of this good season, and we wish for them all a happy New Year."