[Walter Lippmann, in the New York Herald-Tribune, New York]

The greater need is for wisdom in government and in public life, a wisdom which is attainable only by a will to listen, ... to abate prejudice, ... to find common grounds of understanding, and a continual preference for an accurate, an objective, and disinterested view of affairs. ... No charity and no benevolence is complete which is not accompanied by an unremitting effort to learn the difficult art of self-government in a world where it is now possible for all men to be secure and well provided for.

[Rev. Richard H. Bennett, in the Messenger, Melrose, Massachusetts]

Within reach of us all are inexhaustible resources which most of us have never learned to use. We are tillers of the soil, drawing a precarious living from a reluctant land beneath which lies hidden yellow gold. We are children pleased for a moment with our toys and fretful without them, oblivious to the rich and wonderful world outside our nursery window. We are ... Christians who have heard over and over again the song of the angels, but we do not believe! We profess faith; but we live in distrust. We have heard tidings of hope; but we yield to fear. We have received the gift of God's love; but we have only a meager love to give in return. ... We yet have known no better than to seek peace in the enjoyment of comfort, and joy in the possession of things. And now that these things are threatened or taken away from us, our hearts know no peace and our lives are strangers to joy....

Infinitely more precious than the things we have lost are the things that remain—truth, goodness, beauty, faith, hope, love, the assurance of God's good will and blessing in life's hard struggle, and the provision of God's love for the ultimate salvation of our own souls and of the world. Of all these things, and more, we have heard. This time let us believe! And upon our new-found faith, by the grace of God, let us build a hope as deep as life's needs, as high as heaven, and as lasting as eternity.

[From the Hortonville Review, Wisconsin]

Jesus of Nazareth ... has worked infinitely more worth-while change in the world than all the statesmen, all the military captains, all the commercial and industrial wizards, all the inventive geniuses, and all the masters of art who have strutted their little hours upon the world's stage since his few years of labor and sacrifice among the sons of men.

And this is true because his work had and still has to do, not with insensate matter, but with the imperishable ... and because the moral and spiritual influences which have flowed from his example and his teachings have inspired most of the greatest art of the Christian era.

In the world's moral and spiritual twilight he set in motion forces which have operated with cumulative effect down the centuries, till today, in spite of its wickedness and ignorance, the world has begun to realize in a measure what Truth is.

More men than ever before know and realize that if the teachings of Jesus, as handed down to us in the Sermon on the Mount, were honestly and intelligently practiced by mankind, a change for the better would come over the affairs of men so great as fairly to stagger the imagination of even the most advanced in thought.

Every political, social, and economic problem that plagues the race today would vanish into nothingness if the practice of [Jesus] Christ's precepts were universal, just as every one of those problems exists because men refuse or neglect to adjust their thought and conduct to the spirit of his teachings. Governments, business, labor, the schools, and even the Christian church itself would experience increased harmony and prosperity if they would first seek a clear understanding of what the Founder of Christianity taught, and then endeavor to bring their policies and practices into accord with it.

[Rabbi Israel Goldstein, as quoted in the New York Times, New York]

In an age such as this, when lives of men are interdependent to a degree never realized before, it is not enough for an individual to be concerned with his personal salvation. If there is corruption in civic life, if there is injustice in economic relations, if the moral tone of a community is low—every man and every woman who permits such conditions to go on without raising the voice of protest is guilty of a communal sin of omission, no matter how exemplary his personal life may be.

[Editorial in the News-Herald, Owenton, Kentucky]

"God hath not given us the spirit of fear." Then why keep it? Instead, God gives us wonderful gifts—gifts that will drive this miserable and skulking villain of fear out forever. He gives us what gifts, what wonderful gifts? Think of them; "Of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Why choose fear when these other wonderfuyl gifts are ours for the taking? ...

Do you remember it was the "wise men" who came and worshiped Jesus? Do you remember when the prodigal son "came to himself"—when he followed the judgment of a sound mind he returned to his father's house and found peace and plenty? The "sound mind," the mind that will guide us into right thinking and right acting, and therefore into happy living, is held out to us.

Remember, these are gifts. The human, the carnal, the selfish, the foolish mind offers us "fear." ...

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve." Nobody can choose for us, and we can accept either. Friends, why do we hesitate, when everything loathsome is on the one side and everything attractive is on the other, and we can determine which we will have?

[Rev. James Reid, M. A., in the British Weekly, London, England]

Love is the only power that can redeem. It is the one way of action in our relationship with one another that can solve the problems which these create. That fact underlies all Christ [Jesus'] teaching....

His purpose is to awaken in us the spirit of sonshipo to God, and to save us from the grip of selfishness and sin. For that purpose Love is the only power. The threat of punishment, the compulsion of force, are futile. They may suppress the symptoms. They cannot touch the roots. Only love can break through the blindness with the vision of God. Only Love can cast out fear and kindle cleansing shame. Only Love can redeem.

The other part of the problem is the making of fellowship. The need of it invades the home, the workshop, the world of nations. The question of peace or war depends on our power to create fellowship. The happiness of home, the peace of industry, are held up till we can deal with the frictions and stresses that wreck our common life. Here, again, society is content with enabling people to rub along together. But Christ [Jesus] is not content with that. He seeks to make foes into friends, to turn warring nations into happy neighbors. He came to bring us all together in the real unity of the Spirit. And for that, love is the only way. Was not that the point of his command to love our enemies? We must seek their good, not to avoid becoming like them, but through love to turn them into friends. Only love can do that. Only infinite patience and endless forgiving can create the new spirit. Only love can uproot the hidden animosities. Only love that believes in fellowship, and will suffer anything in making it, can dissolve the frictions. There is no other way.

[From "A Philalethean," in the Examiner, Warrington, England]

The world needs something more than brilliant minds. It needs good will to regulate and direct such minds. It needs minds that can see that we are all one, and that peace and prosperity can never come till we live as brothers, doing what is right one to another.

And that is what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God. He saw that life for all might be happy and rich, in conditions of peace and security, if men would seek to do the will of God, which is righteousness. And there is no way to happy, peaceful progress if righteousness is lacking.

The future is still dark to many, but to some of us there seems a way that leads to the "Golden Age." It is the way of Christ, the way of love—"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

[Editorial in the Irish Times, Dublin, Ireland]

Is it inconceivable that faith and prayer should reveal to a whole world, now questing hopelessly for happiness, incalculable and eternal sources of happiness? To God all things are possible, and our century may see a world in which Christ will be the Master not merely of some private lives, but of all public affairs. If, and when, that day comes, it will settle every problem of politics and industry. The hatred and uncharitableness which now degrade ... politics could not survive, for one instant, the touchstone of the Sermon on the Mount.

[From States, New Orleans, Louisiana]

Material things are the easiest things in the world to get; they are also the most unprofitable and the most unsatisfying. Material things can be stolen. But not the things of the mind. The satisfactions of the spirit can be gained only by slwo and sacrificing effort. One does not have to be a scientist to gain them; one does not have to be anything; one need be only himself. Even if one never reaches the goal of the vision, the triumph is just as great, because it is ideas, not materials, that are the real wealth of human beings.

[From the Coloma News, Wisconsin]

Jesus said, "Abide in me." He did not say, "Visit me occasionally." We abide when we do all things as unto him, squared with his purpose, directed by his spirit. When we abide we rejoice. If we abide—we shall ask—and it shall be done. When we abide we bear fruit. "He that abideth in me, ... the same bringeth forth much fruit."