Article October 27, 1934 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from A. T. S. J., N. J. Hawthorn Jones, W. J. Preston

[A. T. S. J., as quoted in the Christian World, London, England]

Man never comes into his own by even the most skillful playing of the pieces on the chessboard, but only as he sees beyond, and lives for the vision of good. And this is impossible unless we restrain and control the natural man and ally his instincts (the Puritans understood this subject much better than we, with our foundness for playing with fire, dare admit); and it is only as what the Puritan called "the old Adam" dies that the true self can live. The contradiction between a selfish and a disinterested life can only be ended by a new life, lived for Christ's sake.

But this vision of good is not solely an individual good; it has far-reaching influence on all human relations. We all have ties with one another, and there is no man's good that is merely a private good—our own good is always bound up with the good of others. So that when we speak of the public good, what we mean is a condition of human relations in which each man, as one in the great family of the city or the nation, can realize in his own self the vision of good: or in plainer phrase, the ideal society has in view the good of all: not the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but something much more finely wrought, and more akin to that New Jerusalem which John saw in his dream—"the holy city . .. coming down from God out of heaven." ... And in this thought of an ideal city there is something which appeals to the highest in us, ... and the unrealized vision which men have seen, and do see, is no illusion, but is a reality which will come to earth when cities and nations, like individuals, accept the conditions of true self-realization, and live to God. ...

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