[The Christian Intelligencer]

From this terrific struggle will come an impetus to enlarge the scope and application of the gospel of love and peace to all the world. The church has been playing with the great task of evangelization committed to her by her Master. She has viewed with something of complacency the spread of a so-called "Christian civilization" among the nations of the earth, rather than given herself to the more difficult but far more essential task of implanting among them the real seed of gospel truth and life. Now she has seen the calamitous consequences of such substitution. The fields of the world have been sown with tares more freely than with wheat, and the inevitable harvest is being reaped.

But if in the coming year or years the lesson shall have been learned and the church shall bend its energies more wholly to the work of the intensive rather than the extensive cultivation of the spiritual life of men, and shall be more concerned to bring men into a spiritual relation to Christ rather than to a formal relation to the church, even the leanness of these years of famine will have been well endured for the fulness of the blessings which will be hereafter experienced. Such, then, should be the prayer and wish of every Christian for the year upon which we are entering, and such will be the outcome of even the cruelty and passion of the present strife, if men shall thus be convinced that only through the Christ can the world be brought to temporal or spiritual peace and blessing; because there is no "salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven give among men," than the name of Jesus, whereby they can be saved.

[The Christian Church]

Has not the fact that the church as a whole has not proclaimed war anathema and utterly and absolutely contradictory to the religion of Jesus Christ, and that no man who took part in it except in self-defense, and that as a last resort, after courts and all else had been tried, could have any part in the Christian church,—has not this fact, we say, been just the thing that has so weakened the church's authority in this regard that if now she attempts to speak it is with weak voice? But we believe that if she should put before the world now just what war means, and then in one mighty and unanimous voice condemned it absolutely, that the world would listen. The world's very surprise would cause it to listen. The time has come to do this.

[George E. Burlingame, D.D., in The Watchman-Examiner]

The sky-line may shift, and our field of vision and of experience may widen, but always God is our home, and "in him we live, and move, and have our being." By faith the soul, awed by the mystery of the future, burdened for its grave responsibilities, and coveting the enjoyment of its richest possibilities, may enter so fully into the secret of abiding in God through all change, that the most vital reality of life shall be God Himself.

[Rev. Paul Sperry in New-Church Messenger]

Many today are looking slightingly at the ten commandments and calling them obsolete and inapplicable to modern conditions. But no more divine laws are needed today, and comparatively few human statutes, and these latter only to make clearer the practical application of God's laws. The one crying need is a spirit of obedience, a love for orderly ways, a yielding to divine guidance and instruction; in other words, grace and truth. The one law that must underlie all the laws of a city, state, and nation, in fact that must be the essence of international laws, is that which our Lord came into the world to establish on a practical working basis,—the law of love. Only as his promised second coming shall usher that law into modern conditions can international warfare cease forever, industrial strife give place to cooperation, and personal antagonisms be superseded by the spirit of mutual helpfulness. It will not mean that law has been set aside, but rather that it has been enthroned where it belongs, at the left hand of and close beside righteousness in the temple of practical religion.

[American Lutheran Survey]

Shall we grow more and more into the similitude of Christ? We cannot grow except as we feed upon the spiritual food which is Christ. We cannot learn except as we hear and hearken to God's voice. We cannot walk circumspectly except as we walk with Him. Shall we listen only with the ear of sense? Then we shall not hear His voice. The voice cannot be heard with the ear of sense; its tones make no impression upon the surrounding air, nor do they stir the waves of the physical atmosphere. Its accents are too still and small to be caught by the natural ear: they are speaking constantly, but they are drowned by the thunder, the earthquake, and the fire.

We hear His voice only by the inner ear; only as we enter the inner, sacred tabernacle are His words audible. There we may hear Him speaking to us even as He called to the boy Samuel in the night-time.

[Western Christian Advocate]

God is in His heaven. Christianity, rightly understood and fearlessly accepted and put to trial and test, is no failure. Civilization has not gone down to utter wrack and ruin. The centuries cannot be rolled back into chaos by any outbreak of passion, undoing all the patient labors of thousands of years. Much may indeed be grievously affected. Advancement, for a time, may be checked disastrously. "High hopes," that had risen "like stars sublime," may "go down the heavens of freedom." The hearts of thousands, a few months ago elate with expectation and glowing with belief in and anticipations of universal love and peace and the brotherhood of man, may be bracing themselves against chill and desolation. But truth is mighty, and it will prevail.

"Well roars the storm to those that hear a deeper voice across the storm." "I make all things new," declared the enthroned Christ.

[The Christian Register]

The question of going to church is not whether one who goes is better than one who does not, but whether he does more in one way than in the other to keep alive the light of religion in the community. It is not so much how he may save himself, as how much he may help save others, that a conscientious man ought to ask. And if he puts this question to himself fairly in his early life, he will rather choose to take that course which makes life best worth living to many persons than that which simply contents himself.

[The Universalist Leader]

Mental atheism is often like a could which, while it hides the sun, cannot prevent some measure of its light and warmth from reaching the earth. The heart that is obedient to God's will feels the glow of His approval, and rejoices in the light of His countenance, thought it may not perceive the source from which its peace and gladness come. The commendation of our conscience is the voice of God's approval, whether we know it or not.