[Charles A. Platt, in the Newburgh News, New York]

It is more than significant that of all the incidents in the life of Paul and all the things which he said and wrote, the story of his conversion should be repeated three times in the New Testament. Why is such emphasis placed upon this one event? Because it was the first time that Paul had really experienced the divine presence of Christ. All the reasoning about our Lord, all the knowledge of his life and teachings, and all the contact we might have with other Christians cannot be compared with the supreme experience of having Christ in the heart.

This inner consciousness ... was Paul's only defense. It was his life, his power, his guiding influence, his inspiration. Nothing else mattered. When any Christian comes to this point in his religious life, then he has learned the real meaning of living the Christian life.

[Jacques Copeau, in Le Figaro, Paris, France (translation)]

What is a true peace?

With the peace our work begins. This work will be not only to rebuild once more what war shall again have destroyed. ... The task which lies before us, or rather which awaits coming generations, is the reconstituting of the modern spirit, modern wisdom and faith.

Peace will not be peace as long as it rests only on the wording of treaties, as long as it is guaranteed or threatened by force. It must be written in the heart. When diplomats have appended their signatures, all still remains to be done. And this important work is for men, if they are worthy of it, for plain citizens in every country to bring to fulfillment.

[John Alexander Mackay, D. D., LL. D., President, Princeton Theological Seminary, in Liberty, Washington, District of Columbia]

A distinguished Argentine thinker ... made this luminous statement:

"Only those countries have ever made a success of democracy," he said in substance, "in which the people, or at least a strong minority of the people, have cultivated personal religion and taken up an attitude of personal loyalty to God. The experience of God and the appeal to God gives people a sense of dignity; it instills into them settled principles of right living, and inspires them with a deep sense of responsible action. In our countries," he went on, "religious inwardness has been lacking throughout our history, with the result that we have not found it possible to be consistently loyal to the democratic system."

The case is not different when we come to the high realms of cultural and religious freedom. Freedom of thought and freedom of conscience—the twin liberties that are most precious to civilized man—without which no civilization is worthy of the name, are children of the Bible....

It was the Bible insistence that truth is one because God is one, that made the scientific spirit and the freedom of scientific research possible. ... Let the Bible be repudiated as the supreme guidebook of mankind, and intellectual freedom will die....

It is natural that this unbreakable link should have been forged across the centuries between the Bible and human freedom—and that the "book of a thousand tongues" should have taken part in a thousand battles for liberty. Increasing insight adown the centuries into the Bible view of man and his destiny led to the removal of obstacles to the development of free personality. For, in the Bible, man is set forth as a being who has infinite value for God, his creator and redeemer. Inasmuch as God has called him to the high destiny of sonship, certain important consequences follow. No human authority has a right to degrade or enslave man or to deprive him of his right to self-development.

[Right Rev. W. T. Manning, Bishop of New York, in the Canadian Churchman, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

We all want peace, but right is more important than peace. Peace can only come as the fruit of righteousness. The Christian religion stands not for peace at any price but for righteousness at any cost. ... A Christian cannot be neutral between right and wrong.

As Christians, and as Americans, we must try to think clearly and to form right and just judgments in this world crisis. ... We must pray that the conflict ... may be so ended that righteousness, justice, and liberty may be preserved and maintained in this world, for the sake of all the nations....

And we must pray that when the conflict is ended the nations, all the nations, may be guided to establish a true and righteous peace, a peace free from any spirit of vengeance or vindictiveness, a peace which will give hope of a saner and a more brotherly world, a world in which men may listen more truly to the message of him who is the Prince of Peace, the only guide and Saviour of mankind, the eternal Son of God.

[From the Hamilton (Lanarkshire, Scotland) Advertiser]

We all want peace. No sane man wants war to continue for a moment longer than necessary. But the nations is firmly determined that it must be a real peace.

War is terrible, but there are some kinds of peace that are worse. The peace that is bought by breaking one's pledged word; the peace that cringes before an aggressor; the peace that is merely a breathing space while the combatants get ready for the next round; the peace that involves the destruction of liberty and the perpetuation of injustice—such a peace is no real peace....

Long ago the prophet Jeremiah warned his people of their peril because they took moral issues too lightly, saying, "Peace, peace: when there is no peace." There are always people like that. They need the stern reminder, in the words of another ancient prophet, that "the work of righteousness shall be peace." And without righteousness there can be none that will be true and lasting.

[From Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa]

The men who founded our nation believed in God. They built their faith into the foundations of our government. Many of the most important early state documents begin with such phrases as "with the help of God" or "by the grace of God." The American dollar bears the motto, "In God We Trust." Washington had faith in God, and so did most of his followers. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence and adopted the Constitution believed that God had a plan for the future of this nation.

Lincoln relied on God during the dark days of the Civil War. Every president of the United States and almost every American who has occupied a pre-eminent position in our history has acknowledged obligation to the Supreme Being who guides the destinies of men and nations.

But we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the present generation of Americans contains many doubters. Some question the power of God in the lives of men and even the existence of God. They think skepticism classifies them among the intelligentsia. They have been told that religion is the refuge of the weak and the ignorant and that really intelligent people are atheists and agnostics.

Some present-day Americans are believers in and followers of foreign "isms." They score the political ideals and religious faith of our fathers.

Though some of them may not realize it, American skeptics are following in the footsteps of those who created the tyrannies that now threaten European civilization with destruction. Modern dictators who would abolish human liberties first seek to dethrone God.

Our danger may not be very great as yet. The great majority of our people believe in God and in the teachings of Jesus even though they are careless about following him. We have complete religious liberty and the right to worship according to the dictates of our own conscience. Americans are still a free people.

We shall be free as long as we follow the example and precepts of the men who founded our nation. To be sure, we are living in new times. We do many things quite differently from the way our fathers did. Many customs have changed.

But the fundamentals are still the same. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are still the greatest pronouncements of liberty and charters of government ever drafted.

Let us remember that they were drafted by men who believed in God and had the greatest faith in His guidance. We can do no better than follow their example.

[Dr. J. G. Huizenga, in the Intelligencer-Leader, Grand Rapids, Michigan]

The greatest and most powerful forces and influences in this world are not physical but spiritual and moral. Faith can overthrow mountains. Love can conquer the mightiest armies. Hope transforms the impossible into the assurance of accomplishment. These forces and influences are indestructible and unconquerable. Any nation, under any form or "ism," that fails to exalt these three great and fundamental virtues above material resources and intellectual achievements, must of necessity fail. The continued existence of any nation, therefore, is entirely dependent on the degree of purity and perfection with which they manifest these virtues in their daily life and service....

It has been noted that national morality based upon the triple virtues of faith, hope, and love is the test of a nation's possible achievements in civilization. But unless these virtues can find their expressions and reciprocal responses in something more stable than vacillating, undependable, imperfect human nature, they cannot long endure.

The representatives of our people who formulated our Constitution were fully cognizant of that fact. They knew history and the mistakes that caused many nations to vanish. Profiting by that knowledge, they offered the first amendment to the Constitution granting to religion, in general, such unlimited privileges of self-expression, within its proper and spiritual scope, as had never been granted to any other people. In accepting that privilege the church assumed a tremendous responsibility.

The church was founded upon the unchangeable and dependable resources of eternal Truth, perfect righteousness, and infinite Love.