Article May 14, 1927 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Clarence True Wilson, Frederick W. Neve

[From the Church of Scotland Magazine, Edinburgh, Scotland]

If the world to-day is, as some believe, poor in spiritual gifts, if the spiritual revival which earnest men have been looking, praying, and laboring for does not come, still it might be well to remember that the Spirit of God is always at work in the world and in the hearts of men. Despite all the indifference that is rampant towards spiritual things, it might be well to remember that the world was never so rich as it is to-day in the practice of distinctively Christian virtues. The world is less cruel, less harsh, less hard than it once was. It is more kindly, more helpful, more sympathetic. Benevolence, charity, pity, and mercy were never so conspicuous, never so active, as they are now. People, even very ordinary people, are not so ready to fall into cruelty and unkindness in speech and in action as they once were. And if they do lapse into such, they are visited often with a sense of shame, even of self-contempt, which was not experienced by people in past days.

Again, there is a very marked and powerful aversion to measuring out to the lawbreaker punishment only: men are straining to find out a more excellent way. To reclaim, to restore the fallen, is a purpose that has taken up a permanent abode in the hearts and horizons of men. This was not by any means always so. The spirit of mercy, and not that of vindictive justice, increasingly reigns. The spirit of Christ and the teaching of Christ are gradually possessing and leavening the lives of men. And if this be so, as it is, then the age in which we live cannot be called a Christless age. ... Mercy and love, patience and faith, are the forces which are effective in the restoration of a human soul. And one of the evidences of the life and power of the religion of Jesus in the world is that these forces are more and more gaining control over the minds and hearts of men. In other words, notwithstanding many signs to the contrary, the world is becoming more Christian.

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