[Thomas Mann, as quoted in the New York Herald-Tribune, New York]

Goethe once said to Eckermann, "The mind of man will never star above the sublimity of the moral discipline of Christianity as it shines radiantly in the Gospels." Today, a few revolutionary writers of popular literature, stimulated by half-knowledge, imagine that they have finished with it. A most untimely presumption, for, even though Christianity has at all times been too lofty and too pure a challenge to man's spirit to be realizable on earth otherwise than as a corrective to life, a standard and a spur to the conscience, as a moral discipline, it was never more necessary to any time than to ours. And there are no more repulsive examples of the confusion and barbarization of our world than those who claim to overthrow Christianity.

[General Chiang Kai-Shek, in the Boston Evening Transcript, Massachusetts]

Without religious faith there can be no real understanding of life.... Without faith, human affairs, both great and small, are difficult of achievement. Often when face to face with opposition and possible danger we mortals are prone to retreat and to abandon our work halfway. Such lack of confidence in ourselves is often due to the absence of a strong religious faith.

I have now been a Christian for nearly ten years and during that time I have been a constant reader of the Bible. Never before has this sacred book been so interesting to me as during my two weeks' captivity in Sian. This unfortunate affair took place all of a sudden, and I found myself placed under detention without having a single earthly belonging. From my captors I asked but one thing, a copy of the Bible. In my solitude I had ample opportunity for reading and meditation. The greatness and love of Christ burst upon me with new inspiration, increasing my strength to struggle against evil, to overcome temptation, and to uphold righteousness.

I am indeed grateful to all my fellow Christians who continually offered prayers on my behalf. I was deeply conscious of a strong spiritual support, for which I extend my hearty thanks to all Christians, and to which, before you all today, I testify that the name of God may be glorified.

[From the Labor Leader, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

We speak too muchh and too loosely about many things. Even in prayer one is not heard for his much speaking, and in other things the yea and nay of truth are wiser than all elaboration. We speak without thinking. There is even a tendency in civil governments to have the people turn over to their rulers the responsibility of thinking. All that remains for them after the order has gone forth is to say, "I hear and obey." This is a greater evil than that of multiplying words and evasions after the yea and nay of honest contracts. When one gives over thinking, he gives over about everything that makes him man—fit then for nothing but patchery, jugglery, knavery.

Some who were given to speaking loosely and carelessly gathered round the Master in Galilean times of old and were checked by the unexpected question, "Why callest thou me good?" They talked too fast and committed themselves to more than they could perform. They are pulled up in the confusion of their language and shallowness of their thought and asked to think deeper about what they are saying. The question has troubled all the interpreters since, but it is just possible that it means nothing more than an attempt to cure a youthful carelessness of speech—carelessness, alas! which aye so often fails to cure—by arousing thought. There are many questions of this nature in the records. One outstanding example is, "The baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men?" When they began to think, they could give no answer. We talk too much....

Our civilization is built upon faith, upon the yea and nay of neighbors. Outside of this faith communities cannot subsist.... Let every man speak truth to his neighbor, and we can carry on with less talk, less plans for reform, less folly over schemes and isms of which the world is so weary.

[From the Bournemouth Graphic, Hampshire, England]

International conferences have met many times, they have met in a spirit of good will and with lofty determinations and they have been shipwrecked on the rocks of international selfishness and pride and there has been no health in them.... What is the way out? The way out is through fellowship and service as a basis for individual living. Service above self in individual lives means permanent peace in industry and among nations.

Let us not deceive ourselves, everything else has failed.... The problems of war will be solved when there are enough men living on the basis of service above self. Then there will emerge, as there is even now emerging, an international focus in which the differences of race, nationality, and class will disappear, because pride and greed, which are the causes of them, will disappear.

Is this Utopian? Is it a dream? Is it possible? If it is not, there is no hope for the world.

It is possible because there are men and women today who have proved that it is possible to live completely on a basis of service above self. To have conferences about it is useful; to have fellowship is grand; but the answer is to live it.

People are finding today that a life devoted to service is possible, and they are finding that there is a common denominator which embraces every race, creed, nation, and class on a basis of friendliness and peace. They are finding that this common denominator does exist and becomes evident just as soon as the individual starts to live his life on a basis of service; they are finding then that they are taking part in a supernational plan, and that the author of it is God. There is nothing else. Absolutely nothing else.

["The Gleaner," in the Dorset Daily Echo, Weymouth, Dorset, England]

The Bible is the book of brotherhood; its teaching a standing demonstration against selfishness. It sets forth a truth: the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man—a truth which culminates in Jesus.

Humanity down the ages has been calling after God. "Where shall we find Him?" Humanity has been ignorant concerning the divine nature. Human wisdom failed to discover God. When Paul went to Athens—the city of Plato and Socrates and Aristotle, of Greek culture, genius, art, and knowledge—there was an altar with the inscription, "TO THE UNKNOWN GOD." Yet set against that the wonder of Jesus. He takes the children of men by the hand and leads them right into the presence of the infinite. He says, "When ye pray, say, Our Father."

More than that, Jesus reveals the very nature of the Father. On one occasion one of his disciples said to him, "Shew us the Father," and he said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." ... Study the life of Jesus. The religionists of his day were shocked and amazed because of the disreputable company he kept. He went home to dinner with notorious sinners. They could not understand it, these narrow bigots. They said, Look at him, the friend of sinners. Then one day Jesus turned round on the enemy, and in the fifteenth chapter of Luke you have his apologia. Why was he concerned about the sinner? ...

He painted three word pictures: the shepherd battling with the wind and the rain and the tempest, going over the mountains to seek one lost sheep; the woman who in an agony searches for a missing coin which, though faintly perhaps, bears the image of the king; the father, running to meet the returning prodigal. All are types of men, and each is a mirror of the love of God.

The fatherhood of God—the brotherhood of men. "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

[Rev. Dr. P. J. Maveety, as quoted in the Moon-Journal, Battle Creek, Michigan]

Love for God and love for man constitute the foundation of all moral obligation. Without these all else is but empty form and meaningless creed. What God requires, both in the Old Testament and the New, is that love for God shall be shown by love of God's children of every race, religion, or speech. A religion that limits its saving power to a single country, people, color, or race is not of God; its salvation is limited, narrow, selfish....

Our neighbor is anyone whom we can help. To spread this gospel, this good news, and to illustrate it in practice, was the prime purpose of the incarnation, to tell men how to live, and to show them how it ought to be done.

While much emphasis should be placed on the teaching of this first and most important of the commandments, I am inclined today to stress the fact that people know better than they do, and to lay the emphasis on the necessity of doing. Many excuse themselves from the obligations of the moral and religious demands of life by the specious plea that there are so many creeds and religions in the world that it makes little difference whether one has either creed or practice. This is such a mistake as is never made in any other department of life. Doing nothing solves no problems, accomplishes no destiny, and gets one nowhere. Better to be serving God in some way, than not at all. This do and thou shalt live. Love God in some way; love and serve humanity, and express it in some way. Do, do, do. "Work out your own salvation" has in it the essence of success, as well as the key to the solution of many of our spiritual problems.

[Rev. G. Randall Jones, as quoted in the Bridport News, England]

The course to be followed by those who would be strong and safe is set forth, with full sailing directions, in the Gospels. If we follow that course, in the end we shall drop anchor safely in the harbor of the kingdom of God.

[From the Newburgh News, New York]

If a man will keep his thought on the good things of God, the evil things of the world will die of neglect. When we live in the spirit of religion, we live in God's kingdom, and when we live in God's kingdom, the world and its evil are without power to do us harm.