Article August 3, 1912 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from Livingston L. Taylor, Lyman Abbott, Frederick B. Pullan

[Rev. Livingston L. Taylor in Christian Work and Evangelist.]

Thirty-five years ago the thought of the world, judged by its outstanding thinkers, was materialistic. A magnificent protest was maintained in behalf of man's spiritual nature, but the language of that protest seems to us now like a strange tongue. For the thought of the world today, judged by its outstanding representatives, is distinctly spiritual, and the protest in behalf of the soul, which so many found it difficult to take seriously a generation ago, has given place to a well-nigh universal quest. There will be very little dissent from any such estimate of the present situation as I have just cited. Men know in their hearts that no civilization, not even the civilization of the twentieth century, can give us what we want.

The life of the world must be built up from within, transformed by the renewing of the mind. The life that is more than meat must be reckoned with. "A spark disturbs our clod." Civilizations are meant to be outgrown and reshaped from within. There is a living God. Nothing is final so long as there is one sin, one wrong, one tear. To believe, as Professor Nash puts it, in "the possible stored up in God," is to be at war with things as they are, and yet at peace (if you will allow the paradox), at peace with God, at peace with ourselves—yes, at peace with the world. For those who know God are willing to wait on Him, and to be of good courage, and to do their part in their little day.

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