Article August 16, 1919 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from N. H. Burdick, Leonard Wood, Peter Robinson

[Pres. William Arnold Shanklin in a baccalaureate sermon, Wesleyan University]

The period through which we have just passed was a day of judgment. The nations were arraigned at God's bar, and sentence went forth against selfishness and envy and greed and the hardness of heart and ruthlessness of men, and was executed with unrelenting severity.... There will come a society in which each citizen shall have the fullest opportunity to develop bodily, mentally, and spiritually; the perception that democracy is not merely government, but also an entire way of life; not merely government "of the people, by the people, for the people," but the use of all the natural resources given by God, by all the faculties of man, for the sake of all the people. Every question between men is a religious question, a question of moral economy before it becomes one of political economy.

The war was the final declaration of the insolvency of the old system; and how stands the balance sheet to-day? ... Either we must put an end to war or war will put an end to us. A new era is upon us. We cannot return to the old ways, the old abuses, the old stupidities. The world will not go back to the old order, which had in it the seeds of the recent great tragedy.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Signs of the Times

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access