[Rev. Herbert Hargrave, as quoted in the Star News, Culver City, California]

True citizenship has to do with home life, the religious life, and the civil life, and every other department of life. ...

A citizen is a citizen when he eats and when he drinks; and in whatsoever he does ... he lives to better his community. ...

It follows, as the night the day, that such a man will discharge his public duties as a citizen conscientiously, and in love ... and loyalty to his country as God would have him do. He will be concerned with the well-being of the land in which he lives, and will pray and work for its true advancement.

[Rabbi Silver, as quoted in Great Thoughts, London, England]

If we are to work for a better social order, our children must be taught to know what is wrong with the existing social order. Its deficiencies must be uncovered, its shortcomings exposed, fairly, frankly, without passion or bias, but without understatements, subterfuge, or apologetics. The child must be made aware of what the price is which society pays for these deficiencies and shortcomings in terms of human suffering, deprivations, loss of opportunities, and discontent. He should be apprised of the plans and programs which have been offered to deal with these difficult problems. He should be encouraged to study them fairly and critically. ... All great religions taught the nobility of the shared life, of the peaceful, neighborly, and co-operative life. This has been the goal of all the weary marches of civilization. ... Our children should be trained to think less in terms of their careers and their personal success and material advancement, and more in terms of a helpful and joyous coworker in the common social task.

[Caroline Ticknor, as quoted in the Boston Evening Transcript, Massachusetts]

The three R's, "Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic," taught in the day of the little red schoolhouse, did not comprise the entire curriculum; there was a fourth R, that played a vital part in the education of our hardy first settlers, whose industry and thrift built up this nation. The fourth R was Religion and the pursuit of Righteousness. ...

In the training of a child the spiritual welfare was looked upon as the primary consideration. This point of view elicits small attention today, though many find our present methods sadly inadequate, and are now stressing the need of placing far greater emphasis upon the teaching of good citizenship. These critics realize that it profits little if a pupil excels in the three R's, and other branches of learning, if he comes forth a clever little crook, ... an adept at lying and cheating, and with no compunction as to the appropriation of another's goods.

Good citizenship is only to be obtained by implanting in the youthful minds those ... standards which have in the past formed the foundation of our Christian communities, where upright and honorable citizens were trained to fear God and uphold the laws, and to respect the rights of their fellow men. If such precepts and standards are not implanted early, they are not likely to be acquired in later years.

To stand before one of our overcrowded city schools and watch the troops of boys burst forth at the close of a session, is a sight to stir the pulses of any thoughtful onlooker. Here are the future rulers of this land in whose hands rests its fate, for better or for worse. If they come forth devoid of moral standards, imbued with the conviction that the worst crime is "being found out," or failure "to get away with it," and their belief is that the state is not something to serve, but a distributing bureau for the support of those possessed of some political pull, then we may well despair for our American tomorrow. ...

In each day's order of school exercises there should be some effort made to train the life of the spirit, to inspire moral (not denominational) precepts, and to impress the children with the truth that schooling is character building, as well as mind development. Let the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments be regularly recited, and let it be explained how closely these are linked with the making of good citizens. Not until our schools shoulder the task of rightly and properly guiding their youthful charges shall we reduce the spread of greed and graft, and halt the progress of racketeers and robbers, two specter R's that will prevail until the ... R of Righteousness is reinstated.

[From the Star Journal, Sandusky, Ohio]

Dean Luther A. Weigle of the Yale Divinity School told the New Jersey Presbyterian Synod recently that the paramount need of the moment is for the fuller education of adults; and in his remarks there is a very sensible approach to the problems of the day.

"Enduring social changes, such as we are attempting," he said, "cannot be had unless men are willing to change their dispositions. The Christian adult education we need is such a radical transformation that it warrants the name of conversion."

Considering the normal human resistance to any change of mental attitudes, this looks like a large order. But it remains true that in the long run we shall get precisely the kind of social organization that we are mentally and emotionally readu for.

If we are to rebuild the world so as to wipe out the old abuses, we shall eventually have to remove from our own hearts and minds the twists which made the abuses possible.

[A Correspondent, in the Times, London, England]

St. Paul says that our citizenship is in heaven. The phrase has been paraphrased, "We are a colony of heaven." The apostle might have been thinking of those cities in Gaul or in Macedonia, or of one of those towns of the Adriatic which, though they were far enough from Rome, were inhabited by persons proudly conscious of their Roman citizenship and of their duty to uphold the ideals of Roman civilization. They might live in Massilia, in Philippi, in Salona; but they were Romans. So we, passing our pilgrimage here on earth, are all the time citizens of the kingdom of God, eternal in the heavens. We are of necessity occupied with the business, the interests, the recreations of this present time. Yet it should all pass in the felt atmosphere of the eternal world, and in conscious dependence on the will of God. That for the Christian is the final truth about human life.

Yet many men and women of today cannot see it. They regard such an ideal, if they think about it, as an impossible height of piety, reserved for a few very religious people. They themselves are too busy to consider such a way of life. They leave little time for thoughts of eternity. The worship of God, in any public form, is often neglected as dull or unnecessary. There are many things which occupy a disproportionate place in the minds of the heirs of immortality, and lesser interests leave small space for the consideration of the city of God.

Is this a reasonable view of life? Few, probably, of those who half-consciously adopt it are avowed materialists in the sense that they believe in nothing but what they can touch and see. Some may be doubtful in regard to personal immortality, but most are occasionally troubled or exalted by immortal longings; by a sense that there is a greater and an enduring world beyond yet deeply interfused with this one. It cannot stop there. If there be any reason to suspect the existence of an eternal world, then not to be doing something about it is to fall far short of full humanity. If we have the power to push farther out with the intimations of immortality which come to most of us, we are bound by every law of reason to explore as far as we can get.

Many otherwise sensible persons make the mistake of segregating their most valued interests from what they call religion, under the impression that if they allow the spiritual to invade their happiness, dullness will befall them. ... But those who have the truest experience know that to dwell with Christ is not to lose any good thing they rightly value; it is to possess it still, but with a fresh and greater delight added to it.

[Dr. Ralph A. Jensen, as quoted in the Long Beach Sun, California]

The conflict between age and youth manifests itself in some form in every age. We still have folk who are young, and we still have folk who are old. Always there are those who are gazing ahead with faith and hope and eager enthusiasm, and always there are those who keep looking back at what they think was so much better, and sighing for the good old days.

With a fine loyalty a great many of our older people are trying to adjust themselves to the new day and trying to like it; yet they are not sure that they do like it. They catch themselves in spite of everything looking back with just a bit of homesickness. Their world is vanishing. A generation quickly passes, and with a start we realize that we have grown old-fashioned and out of date. ... And what about youth? "Out of the road," cries youth. All right, but let me urge that you do not forget the sacred heritage that has come down to you through past generations, and let me remind you that it is a vain thing to imagine that something external and political can change this sorry world of ours into all that you would have it be. It is new men who are needed.

You are keen to do something. You have a desire to change these ruins into a temple of God. Be sure that in your plans you do not fail to make room for God's presence, for devotion and stillness and prayer. Do not leave out God.

[Dr. F. C. Reynolds, as quoted in the News, Baltimore, Maryland]

We can have universal prosperity by practicing the Golden Rule in the business and industrial world; we can have world-wide and permanent peace by practicing among all nations, races, and religions, the great commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

[Bishop Moreland, as quoted in the New York Times, New York]

There is nothing in the world that can prevent a war within a few years except the spirit of Christ, the spirit of love and friendliness that teaches us to trust one another. Modern invention has made the world a neighborhood. It is up to us to make it a brotherhood.