[From the Bournemouth Guardian, Hampshire, England]

Signs of the world's awakening to a spiritual change were pointed to by the Rev. W. J. Noble, of London, in an address at the celebration of the foreign missionary anniversary at the Punshon Memorial Wesleyan Church, Bournemouth. He asserted that the world was on the eve of a great day of God, and urged that the church could not and must not refuse the challenge of God. All the unrest of the world, he said, seemed to be leading up to one great point. It was not simply economic, though it was that; it was not simply industrial, though it was notably that; it was not simply national, though that was one of its chief manifestations and one of its noisiest. Above all else, it was a great spiritual change that was coming over the world today, and the effects of it were already beginning to show. Everywhere they found that deep perturbation of the human spirit which, if we read history rightly, presaged a great coming of God. He was not referring to any great material manifestation, but to the development of the kingdom of God. It did not matter where they began to read the evidence, said the speaker, who went on to refer to China, India, and Africa, where, he said, the Christian church had opportunities which she had never had before.

[From the New York Times, New York]

Old-fashioned religion, with belief in God, is stronger today than ever, James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor, said in an address to a community meeting held by civic organizations and chambers of commerce of the Calumet region of Illinois and Indiana. "It is said that the world is beginning to lose the fruits of Christian experience and teaching," he said, "and that the people are losing their ancient faith in God and immortality, are ceasing to venerate the Bible, and are more interested in science than religion. It is my opinion that the complaint is somewhat exaggerated. I believe that statistics will show there never has been a time when church membership was larger in proportion to the population than today. Surely there has never been a time when it was easier to raise church funds. It is probable that there never was an age when more people believed in religion than believe in it today."

[From an article by Rev. Robert S. Coupland, D. D., in the New Orleans Item, Louisiana]

The professing Christian should attend the services of the church in order that he may keep step with the Master of men. To be a Christian is to endeavor to think, feel, and act like Jesus; and he habitually frequented the house of God. It is recorded of him, "As his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day," and that annually he went up to the temple in Jerusalem to offer his sacrifices at the great passover feast. And this loyalty to the services of the church was rendered at a time when there was so much about the church to be criticized that he might have been excused for not rendering such loyalty. Jesus was a churchman, and knew nothing of that type of person who professes, and yet ignores or is careless about church attendance. The believer, be he Christian or not, should attend the public services of his church, because that is the one unmistakable and recognized public testimony to our religion, and we owe such testimony to the Author of our being. Some men have an idea that their moral character and life of integrity are sufficient evidence that they are on God's side, but they are mistaken. A life of integrity is not necessarily a witness to one's belief in God or in Jesus Christ, as such a life may be lived from other motives. Many pagans, infidels, and agnostics have lived lives of integrity. The general public does not know we are believers or not, unless we take part in the exercises of religion. . . . The believer ought to go to church that the lamp of his spiritual life may be kept burning. To live the spiritual life, to keep the soul vital, is no easy task at best. For six days the average person lives within the grip of the material and temporal, and no matter how refined this material and temporal environment may be, it has its deadening effect on the spiritual life. One slips backward and downward without always realizing it. Attendance at the services of the church on one day in the week acts as a foil to the material pull. . . .

The believer should go to church that he may worship God. If God is all that we believe Him to be, then we not only owe Him worship, and will desire to render Him worship, but worship becomes the greatest act in which a human being can engage. People talk about worshiping God out in the open spaces of nature. Of course, such a thing is possible, but the fact remains that the average person does not do it. His mind is on other things. At any rate, Sunday and the church are the time and place appointed by Him who knows that any time and place means no time and place. man is a social being, and his worship should be a social, a fraternal act. . . . The more a man believes, the larger becomes the universe in which he lives, and, consequenlty, the richer his life becomes. To come to a knowledge of religious truth, to attain unto religious faith, is to come into possession of life's greatest asset, since such knowledge and faith extend the horizon of one's existence as nothing else can; and we believe that church attendance is the best way of reaching such knowledge and faith. We believe that the things seen and heard and felt in public worship, if followed up, will inevitably lead to these things. Thomas, who said that he could not and would not believe in the risen Jesus unless he could put his hands into the wound prints, was absent from the little company of worshipers on that first Easter night in the upper room, and so missed the appearance of Jesus on that occasion. The next Sunday night he thought better of it, and joined with the disciples in their hour of praise, and on that occasion saw and heard the risen Jesus, and believed. So may it be with any earnest seeker after truth.

[From the Boston Evening Transcirpt, Massachusetts]

Our London correspondent views the attention being given to religion by the secular press of England as illustrating conspicuously the revival of interest in that subject. Newspaper people, he writes, regard it as their business to give the public what it wants, and editors evidently have decided that at this time it wants religion. In the past the most important of all subjects was scarcely recognized by the nonreligious press; not it is giving much space and prominence to it. One daily after another—the Express, the Standard, and now the Mail—has been publishing special articles on religion. In the first of a series in the Daily Mail, on "The Religion of To-day: What Is It?" Mr. Harold Begbie writes on all he evidence of certain qualities in the average which justify the belief that in his essence he is still religious: "The orator of atheism no longer attracts scoffing congregations in the public parks. Blasphemy is nothing like so common as it was thirty years ago. The manners of the people on the whole display a spirit of consideration for others which is an expression of religious feeling."

Mr. Begbie urges the church to consider whether a candid and sympatheitc approach to a generation which has suffered considerably, and which is by no means antipathetic to religion, might not refresh her life with new vigor and release forces in the nation, now pent up, which make for stability, comradeship, and the highest kind of progress. Recognizing that there is difference of view within the church, Mr. Begbie is consulting competent authorities, for the purpose of presenting the teaching of the two chief schools in theology before the reader without bias. It is suggested that it is just because the church has not been frank with mankind about her difficulties and divisions that she has lost the confidence of the laity. To suppose that the average man does not feel the movement of scientific thought, and that he stands outside the church only because he is "irreligious" is, Mr. Begbie asserts, entirely to misjudge him: "Let the church deal frankly with him and he will disclose himself, I think, as no enemy of truth, and perhaps even as a faithful son of the church of his fathers."

[From the Canadian Baptist, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

At the recent dedication of the publishing house of the Christian Church at Dayton, Ohio, Rev. Alva Martin Kerr, editor of the Herald of Gospel Liberty, had this to say of religious papers: "The followers of Christ Jesus everywhere must be taught that the religious press is no incidental and insignificant thing, to be neglected or ignored; but that it is an indispensable power of the kingdom that is as much needed individual life and home of the Christian as it is in the organized work of the church. For the church clearly to grasp this fact would mean to revolutionize its attitude entirely towards its periodicals. Church papers are looked upon as a sort of burden to be carried. The attractiveness and efficiency of these church papers have been cut down by the strictest kind of economy. . . . Largehearted men and women have given gladly and generously to endow colleges, missions, evangelism, orphanages, and charities; but in recent years they have rarely given to endow the religious periodicals upon which these other institutions and departments of work so largely depend for their continuing interest and existence, and upon which the whole church must rely in great part for the spirit of kinship and brotherhood which gives it cohesiveness and impact.

"But I dare believe that a new day is about to dawn. Local churches in our own and other denominations are beginning to realize the importance of the church paper, . . . and they are putting it into their budget and sending it to every home of their membership as one of the most legitimate and profitable investments which any church can make for its own work as well as for the broader interests of the kingdom. And denominations are beginning to grasp anew the strategic worth of their own periodicals. . . . They are sending them free to libraries and reading rooms, and otherwise distributing them gratis as one of the best possible ways of making the church and its message known to the world. And the expense of all this is being borne as a most necessary and wisely spent levy upon the generosity of the church. There can be no question of the far-seeing wisdom of this growing importance which is being attached to the religious press and the money which is being spent to enhance and broadcast its value to the church and the world."

[Rev. W. Russell, as quoted in the Birmingham Post, England]

The signs of the times are significant of something not yet understood. I believe that some divine word is being vehemently uttered and pressed upon us, and we may be sure we shall not have health and peace in the church unless we hearken to that voice and understand that word.