Baptist Informer
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m : If!-* Official Organ of the General Baptist Convention of North Carolina Volume 70 Raleigh, North Carolina, October, 1948 Number 10 On To Eighty-First Annual Session General Baptist 'resident R. P. DANIEL President P. A. BISHOP State Convention of Shaw University of North Carolina, Inc. November 2-4 Friendship Baptist Church Gastonia, N. C. Executive Secretary Executive Secretary W. C. SOMERVILLE O. L. SHBRRILIi of the Lott Carey Convention GENERAL INFORMATION BAPTIST INFORMER Concerning 81st Annual Session Registration and Meals $4.00 Organ of the General Baptist State Convention Lodging—per night 1.00 of North Carolina Schedule for Meals: Breakfast _. 7:00-9:00 Otis L. Hairston Editor Dinner 1:00-2:00 Supper DIRECTORS OF BAPTIST INFORMER 6:00-7:00 SHAW^O~OBSERVE 0. S. Bullock, Raleigh; L. W. Wertz, Hamlet; E. M. Butler, Wilming- ton; R. P. Daniel, Raleigh; Mrs. Viola McMillan, Tarboro; P. A. FOUNDER'S DAY Bishop, Rich Square, and M. M. Fisher, Durham. NOVEMBER 19TH Dr. Dennis Branch, prominent STAFF CORRESPONDENTS physician of Newport, Tenn.. Leroy Davis, Winston-Salem; S. R. Johnson, Jr., Salisbury; Mrs. will deliver the annual address Annie Mae Evans, Fayetteville; C. C. Staton, Weldon; H. L. Mitchell, at exercises marking the 83rd Gatesville; R. Irving Boone, Wilmington; C. F. Graves, Elizabeth anniversary of the founding of City; Mrs. L. B. Reeves, Belmont; O. A. Dupree, Washington, N. C. Shaw University. The Found- Published the fifteenth of each month, with office in Baptist Headquarters, Shaw er's Day services will be held University, Raleigh, North Carolina. Friday morning, Entered as second class matter September 21, 1911, at the Post Office, Raleigh, November 19, under act of March 3, 1879. at 11 o'clock and will be dedi- $1.50 a year cated to the memory of the late Dr. Henry Martin Tupper, who as a retired Union army veteran came southward from his home in Massachusetts to work in the interest of education of the LET'S DO AWAY WITH THE LOCK- freedmen. Dr. Branch, a native and for a number of years a resident of Raleigh, is a graduate of Shaw University from which he holds the A.B. degree and the B.S. in Medicine. His early schooling was at the Washington graded school and the Chavis High School in Raleigh. He received the M.D. degree from West Ten- nessee Medical College, Mem- phis, Tenn., in 1914. Since that time Dr. Branch has done post- graduate work in internal medi- cine, obstetrics, surgical diag- nosis and in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The capa- ble physician treats patients of both races. The Founder's Day Speaker tells with pride of his work ex- periences as a boy and young man in Raleigh. He worked in several shops as a boy and prior to the -first World War was a letter carrier for three years in the state's capital city. In New- port he has served as chairman of the Red Cross Drive among Negroes for the past four years. Courtesy Institute lor American Democracy, Inc. He is a trustee of Morristowr; Junior College, Morristown, Ten- nessee. Baptist Informer Official Organ of the General Baptist Convention of North Carolina Volume 70 Raleigh, North Carolina, October, 1948 Number 10 Editorial Comments The Significance of Annual Christianity, Americanism, and Gatherings Prejudice From August through November each year, The report of the World Council of Churches, hundreds of assemblies marking annual sessions meeting recently in Amsterdam, was the answer of Protestant Christians to the shameful cam- of district and state Baptist organizations are paign of racial religious prejudice which is being thousands of persons attending. held with waged in many parts of the world. If one could analyze the interest of the host of The report said flatly that the Church knows would in all people attending these meetings, he "it must call society away from racial prejudice probability find the interest ranging from beggars and from the practices of discrimination and seg- to God face seekers. There are at most of the regation as denials of justice and human dignity." gatherings some persons who come to get an of- Then, coming down to cases, the report de- clared, "We must acknowledge in all humility fering, some who come primarily for social pur- that too often we have failed to manifest Christian poses, and perhaps that minority group who come love towards our Jewish neighbors or even a seeking inspiration and information that it may resolute will for common social justice. We better serve. call upon all the churches we represent to denounce The real purposes (or what should be the pur- anti-Semitism, no matter what its origin, as abso- lutely irreconcilable with the profession prac- poses) of annual meetings are to offer information and tice Christian faith. Anti-Semitism is and inspiration and to give the constituents an of the a sin against and man." opportunity to participate in making the laws and God There are, as is well known, of policies of the body. a number Cath- olic pronouncements of a similar kind. Only last One should expect in attending an annual meet- month Archbishop Cushing of Boston dealt with ing to first be informed of the activities and im- the same matter in an address before 5,000 friends portant actions carried on by delegated persons and benefactors of St. Columban's Seminary. and committees during the interim of the yearly "I cannot understand any Catholic who has any gathering. Subsequently, he should look forward prejudice whatsoever against a Jew or other non- to lending his voice and vote in proposals that are Catholic," the Archbishop said. "If there is any offered for future enactment. Catholic organization harboring such prejudices, Doubtless, of greater value and the most signifi- I will assume the responsibility of remedying it. cant thing about the annual meeting is the inspi- A Catholic cannot harbor animosity against men, ration it affords through dynamic sermons, ad- women and children of another creed, nationality, dresses and panels, and through wholesome or color." fellowship with those whose interests are similar. It is as certain as anything can be that those If a few messengers do nothing more than attend who follow the ways of racial and religious hate the inspirational sessions at the assemblies, and have Christianity and the Church against them. become inspired to be more devoted in their local It is equally certain that they have American- tasks and to use their influence in getting the ism against them. From the earliest days of our folk back home to lift their interest beyond the Republic to the present time spokesmen for local community, the annual meetings are doubly Americanism have denounced prejudice and justified. warned us of the dangers inherent in it. It is hoped, however, that delegates to annual Thus, when Abraham Lincoln inquired into the sessions will seek to be informed and inspired, matter of what "constitutes the bulwark of our and will also demonstrate a deep interest in the liberty and independence," he came to the conclu- affairs of the organization that there might de- sion to which all good Americans subscribe. velop a genuine spirit of democracy in the group. "Our reliance is in the love of liberty which 4 The Baptist Informer October, 1948 God has planted in us," he said. "Our defense is "Now, as we ascend in nature we find this—the in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage basic laws of a higher plane have just this power of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this of overruling some of the laws of a lower plane. spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism "Gravity is a great law in the inorganic world. at your own doors. Accustomed to trample on It is still a law in the organic world, but the great the rights of others, you have lost the genius of law of the organic world—the law of life—is su- your own independence and become the fit sub- perior to it. The plant thrusts its stem upward jects of the first cunning tyrant who arises among in the face of gravity ; man walks about in de- you. Let us discard all this quibbling about fiance of it. this man and the other man, this race and that "Then why may there not be a law in the next race and the other race being inferior, and there- plane of nature—the spiritual—that, just as nat- fore they must be placed in an inferior position. urally, supersedes some of the laws of the organic Let us discard all these things, and unite as one world? The plant reaches down into the organic people throughout this land until we shall once world, and grasping the dead atoms there, endows more stand up declaring that all men are created them with life and the ability to rise superior to equal." the force of gravity. May not the spiritual world So, if you come upon someone who is spreading do as much for the material world without out- the virus of racial and religious hate, stand your raging a single law of nature?" ground, and tell him that that kind of talk is un- "Why—why, I guess it could," the young man christian and un-American. Remember that stammered. everything good, just, and decent is on your side. "It not only could—it does," the surgeon de- —Institute of American Democracy. clared emphatically. "Then there is something in prayer, after all?" " 'The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous The Higher Law man availeth much," the doctor quoted.