From Our Exchanges
[The Christian Register]
A day is coming sooner or later for the regeneration of nations, to bring new life and hope to exhausted and heartbroken peoples. It cannot be done by wailing and gnashing of teeth, or by lugubrous prophets who go up and down crying that the world is soon to come to an end. It is to be done by faith, hope, and charity, and a new spirit of trustfulness and courage. We can all help in the creation of that spirit. It cannot be generated by bitterness, hatred, and mad rivalry, but by patience, tolerance, and mutual forgiveness. The wounds will be long in healing, but new wars and fiercer struggles will fail to accomplish that end. The day is coming when an enlarged sense of brotherhood will dawn. We can all help in bringing in that day. Not by preaching the judgments of God wrought with fire and sword will the day of the new era dawn, but by trying to live as if we were already citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Peace and joy and hope and service are the elements of that kingdom, and the air is good and salubrious for the healing of wounds and the binding up of broken hearts.
[Western Christian Advocate]
Ever the pulpit must lift the vision of the people beyond the immediate constructive task to the ultimate goal that is to be reached. The preacher must get into the heart of the Master until he can speak with authority concerning the fundamental changes in the social order which the gospel demands. His task is not simply to develop new social machinery, but to bring new life into the social order. Everywhere men of affairs are admitting the essential wrongness of our industrial life; everywhere they are feeling and expressing the burden of sin that lies heavily upon those of Christian conscience; everywhere they are longing to do something to make business more Christian. This conviction of social sin must be increased until it becomes a great driving force to action. This desire for improvement must be led into definite paths, and must not be allowed to stop short of the complete reorganization of life on the basis laid down by Jesus.
[The Living Church]
Some of us have been wondering whether the searchings of conscience that have come with commercial problems growing out of the European war may not indicate that there is near at hand a recognition of the significance of our Lord's words, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." Whether they shall be seen to have the particular application just hinted at, or not, at any rate they mean subordinating business to something higher. They do not, of course, mean that we must be absolutely indifferent to the uses and value of possessions; they mean that we must learn to put first things first. It is the most searching test that can be put to the business men of today,—even more searching than whether they shall be willing to aid and speed the transition to industrial democracy,—to put first things first; the higher before the lower.
[Zion's Herald]
It is well for all of us who are blessed with the privilege of working, to look into our hearts very often to see what there is there. The success of our day's work, as well as the comfort and well-being of those with whom we work, depends not a little upon what we find there when we look. Many a man's work has been marred, and his friends and fellow workers have suffered keenly, because of the unlovely things which have been in his heart. And if his refusal to take inventory of the things in his heart has been persisted in, the warped and distorted years of his life have been a lasting testimony to his unthinking wilfulness in refusing to take account of what he has been harboring in his inmost self.
[The Outlook]
When Christ helped men, he always gave them something to do. He told the paralytic to stretch forth his hand, and in stretching it forth it was healed. He told the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda to take up his bed and walk, and power came with his getting up. He told the lepers to go to the temple at Jerusalem and report to the priests, and as they went they were cured.
And before Jesus finally left his disciples he gave them their mission and laid on them their responsibility. "As my Father hath sent me," he said, "even so send I you. ... Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." What is this but saying to us: You are to do the work. The world will be what you make it. You can purify the world if you will. If you do not do it, it will not be done. What is this but repeating the message of Isaiah: "They that wait upon the Lord"—not wait for Him, wait on Him, are His servants, do His work—"shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." "God helps those who help themselves."
[The Universalist Leader]
We cannot all obtain vast possessions or acquire vast learning or achieve a fame that shall cause the world to hold our genius or virtue in undying remembrance. For all such achievements the needed gifts or opportunities may be withheld. It may even be that while we would gladly consecrate our lives to the service of all mankind, there are few things we can do to promote the happiness of those who are dearest to us. But this one thing we can do,—we can keep our honor unstained, our justice inviolate. We can achieve the "beauty of holiness" by absolute faithfulness to our ideals within the circle to which our activities are limited, however narrow it may be; and that is all that moral sense demands and the will of God requires.
[American Lutheran Survey]
When we make it possible for people to live in comfort in the country and there enjoy the fruits of our best civilization in God's own garden, as it were, we find the environment under which the gospel, through its regenerating and sanctifying power, will produce the best type of Christian citizen, and we will have a chance to work out our serious slum problems, which are steadily growing more grave under present conditions.
[Rev. R. J. Campbell, M.A., in The Christian Commonwealth]
The men who led Israel, the men who made and saved Israel, were first and foremost men of God, men who believed with all their hearts that they were divinely chosen instruments to great spiritual ends. Naturally, such men were able to do amazing things, and amazing things were done so often in Israel's heroic days that we take the record of them for granted without fully realizing its unique character.
[President Woodrow Wilson in a public address]
Wars will never have any ending until men cease to hate one another, cease to be jealous of one another, get the feeling of reality in the brotherhood of mankind, which is the only bond that can make us think justly of one another and act righteously before God Himself.
