Signs of the Times

with contributions from Leroy M. Whitney, Frederick Brown Harris, Stephen J. England

Leroy M. Whitney in the Michigan Christian Advocate Adrian, Michigan

Men seek everywhere for peace of mind, and we all profess to be looking for peace in the world; and we seek peace the more as the enemies of peace multiply.

Our hunger for peace, our search for it, leads us to try many futile remedies. Increased use of tobacco, liquor, drugs, sedatives, and pills are all attempts to deaden our sensitiveness. ...

The Christian message to this distraught day is that Christ is the cure. He alone removes the causes of worry, fear, guilt, strain. He alone can remove the guilt that dogs our steps and cleanse the sin and sinfulness that destroy our peace. He is the transforming Presence. ... Peace comes out of the surrendered, transformed heart. Immortality must be given up for cleanliness and purity; fear must give way to faith in God; sinful habits, to Christian habits. The way to peace is not conformation ..., but transformation by the power of Christ.

Frederick Brown Harris in a column in The Star, Washington, D.C.

If our strength is to be as the strength of ten we must lay hold anew upon deepest spiritual reality. ... There is no such thing as the spiritual regeneration of economics and politics. Always, the remedy lies in the moral transformation of the individual. ... We never will get honesty in industry and in politics until we have honest men. Changed individual lives are the basis of a changed society and of a better world. ...

We need to have it written upon our minds, as with a pen of iron on the rock, that God's will, God's truth ... stand as fast and as binding as ever. ...

Altars of inner purity and integrity increase a nation's strength ten times more than arsenals filled with weapons of destruction.

Sermon brevity in the Falmouth Packet, Cornwall, England

Job 42:10. A ward in a military hospital in Nazareth. The "padre" was asked to speak to a sailor from the "Illustrious" [a British warship] who was dangerously ill. They talked for a time, and the "padre" suggested prayer. The man would not have it. He did not pray! By the bedside was a photograph of his wife and two children, and after more friendly conversation, without a risk of a second refusal, the "padre" knelt down and prayed for them. Leaving the bedside he said to the sailor, "Well, if you will not pray for yourself, ask God to bless them." When next he visited the ward the man, to the astonishment of all, was out of danger and a new man. He told the "padre" that through asking God to bless his loved ones he had found God blessing him. We never know what we can do for others and for ourselves when we pray for our friends.

From the Bulletin Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The upsurge of religious interest, noted in so many quarters and in so many ways, is evidenced also in church membership. ...

In a census of church members—the first since 1926—the rate of growth is shown to be about 60 per cent, or more than double the population increase in the same period.

The fact that three out of five Americans are on church rolls does not fully reflect the religious interest of the nation. In many denominations children are not included in the registration.

The deepening of faith was first noted during the war years, and in the uncertainties that have followed there has been no diminution. The realization grows that material prosperity is not everything, and that peace of mind which is sought above all else does not spring full-down from folding money or a bulging bank account.

That realization has led to soul-searching by many who never previously gave much thought to things spiritual. As a result thousands who formerly subscribed to the theory that church membership was not essential to worship have revised their views. ...

Drive where you will through the country on a Sunday, and the number of cars parked outside small rural churches is astounding. So, too, are the crowds coming out of city churches at the close of a service. Time was when the "Bible belt" was a more or less derogatory term applied to certain sections of the South where there was a frank and open acknowledgment of things spiritual. But today all America is a "Bible belt" in its appreciation that material well-being in itself is not enough.

Stephen J. England in Front Rank, St. Louis, Missouri

Men are always looking for some strange, difficult, mysterious religion that will save them without requiring moral living, and there is no such scheme. The fact is, there is but one rule ... love God, so as to walk in His ways and keep His commandments. Everything is summed up here. The true religion does not consist in trying to force people to live as they do not want to live, but in bringing them to love God, so that they will want to live as they ought. The love of God is the key to all. So Jesus said (Matt. 22:35—40): to love God is the first, and greatest commandment.

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