Kings Business
Los Angeles, California

Today, when so many are neglecting prayer and Bible study and when others in war-ridden lands are forced to worship God in secret for fear of their very lives, it is refreshing to recall the ever-faithful Daniel, who, even though he knew that King Darius had issued a decree forbidding the people to ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days save of himself, went into his house and prayed, "... as he did aforetime."

The United Church Observer
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sometimes when we read the denunciations of idolatry in the book of Isaiah and elsewhere, we are tempted to think that they have no application in modern Canada.

It is true we do not do much worshiping of graven images; but an idol is anything on earth which we substitute for God. If, for instance, we give to an amusement, or our career, or a mother, or a child the highest place in our affections, so that it becomes the center of our life, then that pursuit or that person has become an idol to us. If we give unquestioning obedience in all matters to any person or human institution, that also has become an idol to us. And just as the worshiper of a graven image worships what is no more than the work of his own hands, let us also beware lest our idea of the God whom we worship is not the living God... but merely an idea or aspiration of our own construction, harmonizing well with our own prejudices.

Journal-Herald
Dayton, Ohio

There is no virtue in self-condemnation. Indeed, such a practice is pernicious. It is well for those who are prone to sit about mourning because of their deficiencies and sins to look away from these and direct their attention to the Being who is majesty and might and glory, the Being who sent His Son that man might be made acquainted with his heritage as the child of God.

Self-condemnation is without value indeed. But this does not mean that we should condone our sins. Far from it! We should annihilate our sins; seek them out in the dark corners where they lurk, and give them battle. Of course, in the small light of our mortal knowledge they are not always found readily, for they often pose as virtues. But should we, in our helplessness, turn to the One who is high and contemplate His radiance, His purity and purpose, we will become aware, bit by bit, of those evils which have attached themselves to us and feed upon our sorry thoughts.

However, we should never condemn ourselves because we have been harboring these weaknesses and sins. Rather we should rejoice because we have come upon them and behold them as they are. Then we should order them out of the house of our life, saying in the words of the Master, "Get thee hence. Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."

Living Tissue
Boston, Massachusetts

To drive home the great lesson of the impossibility of a divided allegiance to two irreconcilable ideals of life, Jesus invented a fictitious deity to represent material things or worldly goods, which he named mammon. The vital truth that he was seeking to impart was that a man could not love God with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his mind, and his neighbor as himself, and yet make material success his primary goal in life, spend his days deeply engrossed in the pursuit and enjoyment of earthly possessions, and weighed down with the heavy burdens and responsibilities thereby entailed. His own life was a demonstration of undivided service to God and utter giving of self to man.

The world has never learned this fundamental truth. Though paying lip service to God, it has persisted in worshiping at the altars of mammon.... But a man who lives and moves and has his being amid exacting and absorbing daily preoccupations with worldly things is sure to neglect God become materially-minded and thus a follower of mammon.

But when all is said and done, the necessities of life must be provided. Though man does not live by bread alone, he cannot very well exist without it. Jesus gives the answer: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." The work of the world must go on, but with a new point of view. Things must be sought or created for human needs, but in a new spirit. When man recognizes that life should be ruled in God's way (by spiritual understanding and love) and not in mammon's way (by fear and reliance upon material help). when he learns that life's chief incentive should be disinterested service and not self-interest, and when he understands that the possession of worldly goods is impressed with a trust "to have and to hold" for unselfish social ends, he will have begun in earnest to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness and to escape from the dominion of mammon. And by the same token the things necessary for life in sufficient supply will be added unto him. The chant of David is full of hope: "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."

Rev. M. E. Willcockson
Daily Capital, Topeka, Kansas

Religion has been faced constantly with the danger of degenerating to empty form. Too often the words and gestures of worship are left without the concrete deeds which are an essential part of true worship. The person who does not live at peace with his fellow men and who does not act as a wise steward in the use of his possessions cannot truly worship God.

Charles A. Wells Beacon, Wichita, Kansas

The war has already taught us one thing—that money is not the answer to life's needs. For years we worshiped money and what it could do. We made of it a golden calf and substituted it for the true God of truth, justice, and freedom. When our way of life, which had been so dearly bought by the sacrifice of others, was threatened, we voted millions and billions of dollars as an offering and expected our golden calf to save us. Then the storm struck and we saw that our idol was powerless. Truth and freedom as a way of life can produce wealth, yet money cannot buy them. So now we turn to our small store of spiritual reserves and face the fact that truth, justice and freedom, the foundation principles of our way of life, are spiritual treasures that can be defended and restored only out of our spiritual resources. In the final analysis, those of us who ignore these facts are as dangerous to the life of democracy from within as our enemies are from without.

Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker
The New York Times

We need to remember that the instinct of worship is very deep in the human heart. It is not something which we must whip up and create: it is there, and all we can do is to direct it toward the right objects. Worship, far from being a matter of no social consequence, has enormous social consequences. ...Men who believe in God and love Him are horrified at such practice as idolatry; and for this very reason tend to ward off theories and beliefs that make gods out of men.

When people stand aside from their responsibilities toward God in worship, and are content to let others do it, believing hazily that the church is a good thing for the community and the nation, they are slack in their patriotic as well as their religious responsibility. Worship keeps you and me under the control of God; and outside that control, we become the kind of people who misuse freedom.

Let us cultivate the sense of awe toward God. Let us be reverent in our hearts, and then our outward acts will mirror it. Let us pray with a sense of the tremendous privilege of being in touch with Almighty God, by His goodness and mercy.

Bishop Paul P. Kern
The Christian Advocate, Chicago, Illinois

With what shall we come before the Lord?... With dollars and cents, or with ourselves laid once more upon the altar and cleansed for service in a new world that will await the power of redeemed men and women? ... His power is not slackened and His forgiving and redeeming love lingers only until His church shall seek once more His face and yield itself utterly and unreservedly to His will.! this the time to solemnly renew our covenant with God.

Rev. Floyd N. Darling
Sun-Recorder, Waverly, New York

Religious liberty and freedom of worship were fundamental reasons why men set out across unknown seas to this land. One of the democratic ideals at stake in this world war is religious freedom the unhindered preaching and reading of the Word of God.

No nation will be a Christian nation for long if its people neglect the Bible and the worship of God.

Preaching is not enough: the Bible needs to be read at home as well as at church. It is the message of God to human hearts, and we cannot afford to ignore it or its teachings.

The Bible is the very heart and center of our services of Christian worship. In fact, the Bible points to the church. People who read their Bibles will want to worship Him whose Book it is.

The Boissevain Recorder
Manitoba, Canada

We are living in an age of science, but while that is true we are also living in an age in which the mists of superstition have about disappeared, in which the darkness of ignorance no longer envelops the mind. We have come out of the Egyptian night into the clear, crisp morning of liberty, and this liberty includes liberty to worship as we feel called to worship..

But that liberty may be lost because of indifference.... It is time that we awaken from our sleep and push forward with all our strength the coming of a better world.