Signs of the Times

with contributions from Rudolph S. Ressmeyer, Earl L. Holliday, Ernest Lloyd

The Window Cleaner in The Evening News Portsmouth, Hampshire, England

Love alone can triumph over hate. Peace of mind is the only antidote for our present unrest and discontent. Simple honesty and sheer goodness are the only weapons with which we dare face and fight the evil so rampant in the world today.

Only the givers can oust the grabbers in the world of men. It is the humble Christian who is content to follow in the steps of the man who went about doing good, and to practice love as he taught and practiced it, that this war-weary world needs most of all. Of all the homely virtues, there is surely none so much needed in our generation as kindness and courage. (I like the schoolboy's definition when he said that courage is that part of our make-up which says "Stick it" when all the rest of us says "Chuck it"!)

Brilliant qualities may never be ours, but the homely virtues are within the reach of us all; and character is built up, not out of great intellectual gifts and splendid public attainments, but out of honesty, industry, thrift, kindness, courtesy, and gratitude, resting upon faith in God and love towards man. The Master of men, who played with children and who washed the disciples' feet, said, "I am among you as he that serveth." I can think of no greater incentive than that to encourage us to practice the homely virtues as we make our way along the road of life with a sincere desire to keep on the alert for every opportunity of lending a helping hand whenever and wherever we can. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ's [Jesus'] life was spent in doing kind things? Run over that life with that idea in view and you will find that he spent a great proportion of his time simply in making people happy, doing good turns to others, and in showing us the true value of homely virtues.

Rev. Rudolph S. Ressmeyer in a sermon reported in The Evening Sun Baltimore, Maryland

The text the Reverend Mr. Ressmeyer used was taken from I John 4:19, "We love him, because he first loved us."

"There is much superficial thinking on the subject of a Christian's love to God and all too much superficial exercising of this love," the Reverend Mr. Ressmeyer said. "This love to God goes to the very root of our whole Christian faith and life. It dares not be secondary, spasmodic, or shallow.

"A Christian's love to God must also reveal itself in his love to his fellow man," the pastor continued. "In this same epistle of John we read: 'If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: [remember this is God speaking in His inspired Word] for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.' Here you have the solution for all the human relationship problems: family, neighbor, labor, national, and international."

Rev. Earl L. Holliday in a sermonette in the Marion Star, Ohio

True prayer is hungering for God. Most people pray only when in trouble. It is they that hunger and thirst after righteousness that shall be filled. Real hunger for God is always followed by real dependence upon God as our own eternal friend on whom we can count and rely.

Ernest Lloyd in Signs of the Times Mountain View, California

"What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?" Psalm 116:12.

The writer of this remarkable psalm was not one of those thoughtless and indifferent men who pass through life receiving all, enjoying all, expecting all, without ever bestowing a thought on the bountiful and divine Giver. On the contrary, he was overwhelmed by the magnitude and the multiplicity of God's benefits, and he scarcely knew how to express his gratitude. "For all his benefits toward me"—benefits great, benefits small, benefits temporal, benefits spiritual.

There are so many blessings and so much goodness which we often overlook in the daily routine of life. God's gifts are multiplied like the dewdrops or the snowflakes, and, gliding into life as silently, are easily missed by our careless eyes.

The keynote of the higher and better life is thankfulness, gratitude, the appreciation that recognizes the goodness and love of God in the blessings which surround us. It is this spirit that leads us into communion with God, a desire to do His will, to be of help to others, and to allay the ills around us.

From the Upper Darby News Upper Darby, Pennsylvania

The state, when it is a good state, can order the relations among men on a certain level, in a certain limited area. But the state can never become the source of a moral law that orders behavior on all levels. Only religion can be the source of a moral law, because only the idea of God gives life enough meaning and purpose from which to derive a clear idea of the fundamental difference between good and evil. And it is only by having a clear idea of the difference between good and evil that we can have a moral law. We can never derive morality from the limited authority of the state.

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