Signs of the Times

with contributions from M. R.

[M. R. in Christian Work, New York, N. Y.]

As the world goes on, man struggles again and again with the question why there is evil in the world, why there is suffering, why things go wrong, but the explanation he will not have is that God is short of being almighty. Every time a new religion comes or goes, it seems to me that our belief in God, our idea of God, grows loftier and loftier. We cannot disbelieve that God is beauty, power, and love. However difficult it is sometimes to hold on to this, we cannot give up the belief. That with our stupid, little, limited brains we should have thought of something less than God—that is not possible. All the evidence of the world will not rid our hearts of the desire at least to believe it.

How, then, can we reconcile the witness of our heart with the things we see around us? Is the fault in ourselves? Is it we who have made the world go wrong? Yes, it is. But does that satisfy? He made us, and if God is perfect, how is it He made us imperfect? If we are imperfect, how is it we are imperfect? We were given free will, and we can use it to choose wrong. But if you were perfect, would it not be a moral impossibility to choose wrong? If God gave us free will and made us imperfect, He gave us the right to choose wrong. The last solution is that evil is all an illusion, that it only exists because we think it does. We believe that. If the evil in the world is simply an illusion, how did we fall into such a monstrous error? The power to discern truth is one of the greatest powers of perfection. So we go on from step to step, and every generation that truly seeks God pushes the matter farther and farther. But though we have grown a little wiser, though our idea of God is a little nobler, though we are a little nearer to the truth, still it is not the truth itself. Yet all that we have gained has been worth while. The conviction that God is love is worth while; that evil is an illusion is magnificently worth while; that if God is absolute He must be good; a growing sense in modern minds that evil is unreal, and of eternity in what is good—all this is gain.

[Dayton (Ohio) News]

Criticism is about the easiest thing in the world to engage in. It does not require any financial backing. Many times it does not even require a reputation. It is a dangerous spirit to cultivate, for both the critic and the community; for, not infrequently, criticism once launched never can be recalled. Malignant doctrines and unfair estimates of persons and movements quite often lead to disaster; moreover, dishonest criticism is criminal.

One ought to be very sure of his ground before he undertakes to test the honor or integrity of another. It is wrong to assume that your own personal opinions or judgments are absolutely correct. Generally speaking, criticism is the outgrowth of distress or jealousy; but, of course, prompted by any such motive it never can result in any good. It is easy to criticize, but one should be very sure that he stands on undebatable ground before he assumes to guide public thought.

[The Continent]

Here is a flash from one of Dr. Harry Fosdick's Sunday morning sermons: "If, when you started out from home just now, you said you were going to church service, you were much mistaken. This is not church service. Church service begins Monday morning at seven. This is getting ready for it—for church service is a fight out there amid the din and dust of business, a fight for a Christian world." Is it not a pity that Christian people cannot everywhere agree to quit speaking of "services" held in the church on Sunday and always say "public worship" instead. As Dr. Graham Taylor observed years ago, the good word "service" ought never to be associated with the verb "hold;" it belongs exclusively in company with the verb "do."

[Lewiston (Maine) Journal]

Apart from the smiles of the little children, how faint a radiance shines in the faces of the passing throng. Can you tell the Christian from the unchristian? the churchgoer from the Sunday slacker? You ought to; for the business of the church is to put comfort, peace, trust, purity, joy, lovingkindness, health, and happiness where there otherwise might be worriment, fear, hatred, revenge, lust, and all manner of unselfishness and unhappiness.

[The Biblical World]

Church methods always threaten to obscure the church's message. We can see this as we look back over the past. We need to see it just now when we are sorely tempted to mistake activity for spiritual efficiency. Is there not danger that we are teaching people how to make other people happy without insisting that they shall be better?

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