Article May 31, 1941 Issue

Signs of the Times

Topic: The Victory of a Righteous Faith

with contributions from Correspondent, Howard Kiroack, Premier King, F. E. Runnalls

[Secretary of State Cordell Hull, in the Christian Advocate, as quoted in the Muncie (Indiana) Morning Star]

There are at work in the world today powerful forces the significance of which no individual and no nation can ignore without falling into a position of the gravest danger and of the utmost jeopardy. These forces are not new in the experience of mankind. They rose on many occasions in the past and, for varying periods and with varying intensity, held sway over human affairs. They spring today from the same source from which they have always sprung in the past—from godless and soulless lust for power which seeks to hold men in physical slavery and spiritual degradation and to displace a system of peaceful and orderly relations among nations by the anarchy of wanton violence and brute force. ... And as the dismal darkness descends upon more and more of the earth's surface, its menacing shadow falls blacker athwart our continent. The very instinct of self-preservation bids us beware. ...

Men will defend to the utmost only that in which they have complete faith. No more vital test has ever confronted the American people than that which confronts it today. There are difficult and dangerous times ahead. Our national independence and our cherished institutions are not immune from the challenge of the lust for power that already stalks so much of the earth's surface. Unprecedented effort and heavy sacrifices will be required of us as the price of preserving, for ourselves and for our posterity, the kind of America that has been fostered and preserved for us by the vigilance, courage, and sacrifice of those who preceded us. We shall succeed if we retain unimpaired the most precious heritage which they bequeathed us—an unshakable faith in the everlasting worth of freedom and honor, of truth and justice, of intellectual and spiritual integrity, a triumphant faith in God.

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