Article January 11, 1941 Issue

Signs of the Times

TOPIC: STRESSING SPIRITUAL VALUES

with contributions from James M. Maxon, Janet Beardsley, Thomas M. Palmer, P. H. B. Lyon, Governor Dickinson

[From Life and Work, Edinburgh, Scotland]

When Zinzendorf (the leader of the Moravian Brotherhood in the eighteenth century) was still a schoolboy, he conceived the idea of founding a new religious order, to be called the Order of the Mustard Seed. Its members were not to retire to a monastery, but were to endeavor to live the Christian life among men in such a way as to extend Christ's kingdom by the quiet, continuous method of the mustard seed. The badge of the order was to be a gold ring, on the inner side of which were engraved St. Paul's words, "None of us liveth to himself." If the idea sounds priggish, we can save it from priggery by remembering that not any one group, but the whole Christian church (which means ourselves), ought to be the Order of the Mustard Seed.

In these days we are constantly being warned to beware of careless talk about the war, because we never know who may be listening. But Christians have a yet further responsibility: to beware of unchristian talk. It is so easy, under the fearful stress of war, to become unchristian in thought and feeling, and to begin to talk foolishly, bitterly, ungenerously; grumbling unnecessarily. . . .

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