Article September 23, 1922 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Charles P. Anderson

[From the Brighouse Echo, Brighouse, Yorkshire, England]

All desolations, as Rev. William Harrop, preacher, has said, were man-made. When he, of late years, had heard pious folk talk about God sending the war for this and for that, he had shuddered at the thought; to him the very idea was blasphemous. God made beauty, goodness, order, truth, peace, and not war. Often during the weird days of the war, he had seemed to hear this tender lament in the terms of the day—O Europe, O Europe—Russia, France, Austria, Italy, England—"how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not: behold, your house is left unto you desolate." The early chapters of Genesis were to him (the preacher) not so much the history of the world as a new divine and abiding revelation of God; and the God revealed there was one who brought order out of choas, light out of darkness; who created not a desert, but a garden. The God revealed there, was ever the same. . . . The need of the day was for gardeners, not spoilers, men and women, who, in God's name, would do and be and dare to make the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose. The ancient prophet who gave so glowing a hope, gave also the way of its realization—a clean heart, a right spirit, a deep and unescapable sense of God. To garden the whole world was a big task, and he would have every man and woman cultivate the bit about them, and thus would beauty, truth, and peace grow.

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