Article July 4, 1903 Issue

Religious Items

with contributions from Theodore L. Cuyler, I. M. A., Alexander McLaren, Richard M. Vaughan, Maclaren, F. W. Robertson, R. J. Campbell, J. W. Chadwick, James McCosh, Henry Giles

A great many recent utterances of leading men have implied that the future welfare of the United States was so assured that nothing could seriously retard it. Our readers will easily recall utterances of prominent men and journals that sound much like the boast of Nebuchardnezzar: "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" In the prosperity that has come upon the country during the past four or five years, there has been an increasing tendency to overlook the part of God in it. We have attributed it to almost everything but to Him. Now in the midst of it, the withholding of the rain for a few weeks transforms every outlook. It makes us realize that there are other factors in the prosperity of the country than the energy of our people or the skill of our financiers, or the enactments of Congress. Whatever else may have been our sins, we realize that we have not glorified God, "in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways.—The Watchman.

Rev. George A. Gordon, D.D., in an article in The Christian Register says: "Finally, there is the religious need, the profoundest need of all. The most significant thing in our life to-day is the cry among our best people for a profounder religious experience. We are weak and poor and miserable, of little worth to ourselves, and of less to the community because of our superficiality. That is more and more recognized among all our serious people. Stand by your individual thought. Stand by your individual feeling. Stand by your individual purpose, but at the same time open the depths of your moral being to the sovereign presence of God. All lasting unity finds its source there. The space that is below is a divided space. It is divided by streets, by houses, by fences, by rivers, and by seas. The space that is above is undivided, continuous, entire. The earthly mind is the fountain of our division, our strife, our prejudice, our isolation. The heavenly mind is the great mother of union and power."

President Angell, in his baccalaureate sermon at the University of Michigan, as reported in the Detroit Free Press, said: "In the prayerfulness of our Lord we find a most worthy example for the scholar. If there was a being on earth who, it would seem, could afford to dispense with prayer, whose unaided resources would suffice for any exigency, that being was Jesus Christ. But his life was pre-eminently a life of prayer. The windows of his soul were always open heavenward, and in answer to his prayer gales of inspiration from heaven were always filling his heart. The very source of his life and power was in his constant and prayerful communication with his Father. He taught his followers in all persuasive ways by word and by example that they should go to the same source for strength and light."

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