Article November 28, 1942 Issue

Signs of the Times

"Where is your faith?"

with contributions from Frank B. Fagerburg, Clarence W. Cranford

[From Advance, Boston]

Rightly, prophetic voices are calling upon men to have faith in God in these days when war clouds are trying to shut out the light of heaven. If we have faith in God, must we not also have faith in man —the sort of faith in man that Jesus had? The faith that Jesus had in man was not a blind faith. ...He saw man as made in the image of God the object of his Maker's love and grace, and when he pictured the restoration of a prodigal, far gone down the gamut of sin and folly, the first stage in his restoration was "when he came to himself." It is man's coming to himself that is always the first step in his coming to God. Have faith in man! His downfall today is as much a betrayal of himself, as a betrayal of the God who made him.

Beware of attitudes and theories that depreciate man. Jesus valued goodness wherever he saw it or found it. No dogmas or theories ever obscured values. A Samaritan, a publican, a sinner, revealing some spark of the divine, won his commendation, and he passed over professional saints and despisers of their fellow men, to make some of those whom others called "sinners" the models of faith and conduct for future generations.... But in this day of agony and tragedy there are stories of human fortitude and of suffering and service for others—and not all concerning conventional saints—that make one proud to belong to the human family and that reveal indelibly the mark of man's Maker.

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