Editorial March 15, 1947 Issue

Delivered "from all the expectation of the people"

Paul Stark Seeley

Peter saw something you and I need very much to see when he was freed from the prison where Herod's hatred, chains, and soldiers would have held him. What he saw was that God delivers men "from all the expectation of the people" (Acts 12:11).

A dictionary defines "expectation" as meaning "the action of mentally looking for something to take place; anticipation." That something which one is mentally looking for may be the coming of evil or of good. In Peter's case, and too often today, the expectation of the people is the common expectancy of evil. It is the wrong-mindedness of godless material belief that would ignorantly or maliciously make mortal man its victim.

This expectation of the people is manifested in a wide variety of ways. Heredity is one. Because a few mortals called ancestors had some unfortunate trait or affliction, other mortals called descendants are expected by the people to be likewise affected.

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