Signs of the Times

The Chronicle-Tribune

From an article in The Chronicle-Tribune Marion, Indiana

It is an old saying that practice makes perfect. ...

There are few more pertinent criticisms of religion than that which arises out of the imperfections so generally exhibited in the lives of people who make a profession of it. ... The keynote of the gospel of Jesus Christ is unselfishness, but few people there are whose lives are distinctly marked by a spirit of unselfishness.

In the 13th chapter of the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, the apostle sets out. as a prism sets out the colors of the ray of light in the rainbow, the phases of life in which unselfishness expresses itself.

Unselfishness is just another word for love.

The apostle tells us, "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" [Am. Stand. Ver.]. It will readily he seen that here is an exercise ground for all the Christian virtues.

Anyone who will fairly measure up to this standard of life is fulfilling "the law and the prophets," for "love is the fulfilling of the law."...

Making all due allowance for the fact that there is a law in our members which wars against the law of our mind, so that the things we would do, we do not, and the things we would not do, we do, as the Apostle Paul expresses it, we are still of the opinion that most Christian people would give a better exhibit of Christianity if they devoted serious attention to the exercise of the common, everyday Christian virtues. ...

"Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," the things which constitute the Christian life, are essentially matters of everyday experiences, and it is by giving heed to them, and seeing to it that they are fitted into our everyday lives, that we more and more attain unto the perfection of the religion which we profess.

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December 3, 1960

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