[From the Weekly Bulletin, Chicago, Illinois, Sept. 13, 1924]

A smile costs nothing, but gives much. It enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is so poor but that he can be made rich by it. A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in business, and is the countersign of friendship. It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad; and it is nature's best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to any one until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.

[From the Journal-Courier, New Haven, Connecticut, Nov. 21, 1924]

The New Haven West Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers, believing that peace is not only Christian but also practicable, records its conviction that war as an accepted means of settling international disputes should be abolished. We believe that the most pressing reform that our time demands is to establish peaceful means for the settlement of disputes.

We believe that the government of the United States should take immediate steps toward the outlawry of war as an accepted method of settling international disputes. We believe that processes of law should participate in such conferences and agreements as shall serve to build up a code of international law which shall make war an international crime. We believe it is the duty of the Christian church to declare and to insist that all international disputes should be settled without resort to war. We call upon our citizens and our statesmen to recognize among the deeper causes of war, greed, injustice, false conceptions of national success, racial pride and hatred, unwillingness to understand other peoples, credulous suspicion of their attitude and sinister economic policies. War creates crushing debt. War is prodigal of its waste of human life. war is destructive of economic, moral, and spiritual values. War violates the ideals of peace and is inconsistent with the law of love. War alienates nations which Christ would unify in the bonds of brotherhood. We recommend that the causes of war be thoroughly investigated and made a matter of common knowledge. . . . We believe that such knowledge will tend to prevent war. We recommend that the Christian will to peace be cultivated. National greatness is to be measured by moral and spiritual values rather than by economic power. Our patriotism should be freed from the patronage of and contempt for other nations. Race and class hatred should be displaced by mutual respect and consideration. We recommend that this minute be read by the ministers in the churches of this association, and that it be studied and discussed by all the organizations and agencies of our churches.

[From the Post, Cologne, Germany, Oct. 11, 1924]

For several generations we have been accustoming ourselves more and more to focus attention upon the outside of life, so to speak, and to estimate what is good and desirable in terms of purely temporal and secular values. The process has created a type,—the modern man; and the modern man is a being who is profoundly convinced that the truly practical business of life is to develop to the uttermost the resources of the natural world about him, and harness them for his own benefit. This belief has created the industrial civilization under which we live, with all its mechanistic accomplishments and its vile and devastating perversions. I venture to prophesy that . . . human society . . . will turn to a simpler, quieter, saner mode of living. When that day comes, as come it will, men will not need to be urged to go to church, whether churches as we know them now continue to exist or no; some kind of facility for the expression of our common spiritual instincts will always be found. In public and private we shall be listening to the voice eternal.

[From the Christian Work, New York, New York, Jan. 12, 1924]

The man who studies his Bible until he catches the spirit of it sees that Christianity and science are not enemies, but coworkers. If, in religion as well as in science, we train our children until they can understand and express the former as accurately and interestingly as the latter, there will be no disagreeable proceedings, like the Fundamentalist– Modernist controversies, twenty–five years hence. "What do ye more than others" in this matter of speech? Do you profane your language with insincerity until your words, which were meant to be messengers of soul to soul, become barriers of misunderstanding and distrust? Do you echo the shibboleths of the crowd? Or do you speak with a simplicity and sincerity which make your secular contracts bracing and wholesome, and your religious experiences contagious and creative? The latter is the mark of distinction, yea, the mark of a Christian.

[From the Northwestern, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Sept. 6, 1924]

When did you first learn . . . of a Christian life? Should a child be compelled to grope its way through darkness seeking a just life? When a child is learning to write, it is extremely hard for it to hold the pen and to write properly; and this is because of the child's ignorance of the art of writing, which can only be dispelled by persistent effort and practice until, at last, it becomes natural and easy to hold the pen properly and to write correctly. Do you know what influences are at work on your child from outside sources which are giving it the wrong ideas or suggestions of life? Do you know what seeds are being sown which will bring forth their fruit later on? The church offers to train your children. . . . Start your children to church early in their lives, that they may be properly instructed and fortified for the trials and temptations of life.

[From the Times–Union, Jacksonville, Florida, March 10, 1924]

So very many people, if not all, manifest desire to keep young, to carry youth into the years of age. . . . There are, however, means and methods for keeping young, for continuing youth even in old age. Without pretending to give a prescription that will have the desired result, and thus inviting the charge of practicing as do quacks,—without offering to prescribe a guaranteed remedy,—there is something, nevertheless, that can be done and that has in it gratifying possibilities, something for the success of which there is visible evidence. It is put forth by one who asserts that "you do not need to become old if you will deliberately refuse to associate yourself with ideas and habits of thought and practices that are old." And then he lays down "one simple rule for keeping young." It is "to think young." . . . Keeping young is more a matter of heart and head than of dress or complexion, as so many think. Where youth sits enthroned, age cannot enter. Where youth is banished, there age appears upon the scene and makes its marks on brow and cheek, and implants the seeds of decay in mind and body; and all the nostrums of the world will not avail. The "spirit that is independent of years" is able to defy age and to prolong youth. . . . It is worthy of cultivation. It goes a long way in answering the universal question of how to keep young.

[From the Press, Asbury Park, New Jersey, July 17, 1924]

Man does not break the law, Dr. E. Stanley Jones told a congregation recently, but he breaks himself upon the law. ... In declaring that the individual who thought it was the law which suffered at his transgression was in the wrong, the speaker at the Tabernacle said, "Sin, sickness, and death are not real nature." Holiness and health are, he maintained, declaring that when Christ Jesus restored sight to the blind, he called them back from a false nature to real nature. Referring to the account in the Bible of Christ Jesus walking on the sea, he said that Spirit has power over matter and the more and more spiritual one becomes the more one can overcome matter. This easily explained Jesus' power, he maintained. One of the greatest faults of Christianity is the division among its workers, he said, declaring that the only true sanity is Christlike living.

[From the Journal, San Francisco, California, Dec. 18, 1923]

"Are you a business executive or salesman who wishes to sell more of your goods? Then study your Bible. . . . In chapter sixty–two of Isaiah, you will find this passage: 'Go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; . . . lift up a standard for the people.' This advice is applicable to every salesman, every business–man. Each can raise up a standard of honesty and square dealings for every man, woman, and child in the world. The greatest asset to everybody engaged in selling goods is the silent partner,—optimism. An optimistic outlook upon life can make sales and prevent wars. . . . It is a quality every man should cultivate," declares Col. Charles S. Simmons, Manager of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

[From the Item, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 13, 1924]

All of us, to obtain the most from life, face the same problem. We, too, must learn to think constructive thoughts, to foster cheerful and healthy thoughts. We, too, must think in such a way as to advance our moral and intellectual education. For upon these things depend our reason, out advancement, and out happiness in life. This world and life of ours is filled with beauty and madness. We can make our life a purgatory or a paradise, a thing of beauty or a dream grotesque. For, as a man thinketh, so he is. What do you wish to be?

[W. Hughes Jones, in the Herald, Glasgow, Scotland, Aug. 8, 1924]

The twentieth century is going to see the Bible become as great an educational force as it has ever been in history, if not a greater. In a few years it will be the textbook on English in all up–to–date schools. It throws a surer light on the historical development of western civilization than any primary course we possess. . . . The history teacher of the future . . . will teach the philosophy of progress, and the book in his hand will be the Bible.

[From the Expositor, Cleveland, Ohio, May, 1924]

The task of the church is to bring the new glory—the kingdom of God—on earth. It is to be done by bringing all men to obey the law of God. Jesus summed up the whole of this moral law in two sentences. What then is our great task? Is it not to bring all men to love God and one another?