Article December 21, 1957 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Kermit R. Olsen, Michael S. Newjohn

An editorial from
The Zululand Times
Eshowe, Natal, South Africa

There will always be a Christmas. This is the fact which should bring hope and courage to our hearts. The world may appear to be dark and bleak, but in spite of appearances there are many evidences of a silver lining.

We would do well to remind ourselves that Christmas does not live on through the centuries because it is a time of merriment. ... Christmas has its roots deep in the centuries—so deep that it is well beyond the range of international intrigues to destroy it. It is part of the deepest treasures of the human race, ... a great illumination, a vision of ultimate reality. P/>Christmas impels a thought of God breaking through the madness and confusion, the futility and frustration the hate and selfishness of man's ideologies, and confronting us with saneness and order, meaning and purpose, light and truth. ... We let the dream in our souls, which some call the Kingdom of God, and others think of [as] the hunger for the good, the beautiful and the true, take possession of us. Nothing can save us from our disgusts, our unrealized desires, our frustrations, our enmities and our cynicisms except the truth enshrined in the message of Christmas that man is not left entirely to his own futile devices. Against the difficulties and uncertainties of world statesmen to secure lasting Peace for the world, stands the light which shone at Bethlehem. Here is the Light of the World which cannot be put out, any more than the light of one single candle can be put out by all the darkness in the Universe.

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