[Editorial in the New York Times, New York]

In the last analysis we are either our brother's keepers or his destroyers. Though we set no troops marching, though we clear no decks for action, there is still no neutrality.

The phrase "collective security" has come to have a bitter taste in men's mouths. Yet in the long run there is no choice between collective security and ruin. In the long run the lives and property of peaceable, nonoffending men and women of peaceable, nonoffending nations will be made safe or civilization will die. And it will not die. It is a far tougher organism than those who assail it and those who betray it are willing to believe. It has come out of pain and sweat and sacrifice. It has come out of the minds and hearts of men and women turning away from ease and softness to do hard tasks. It has come out of hopes and dreams and visions. It has been defended on battlefields and on sinking ships and in the narrow room of poverty. Those who have built it. those who now sustain it—the humple and obscure as well as the powerful—are slow to anger, but, like "the mills of God," when once aroused "they grind exceeding small." They can be driven back and defeated for a day, a week, a year, but not forever. There is justice in the world, cherished in men's hearts, and let there be no doubt of it—in the end it will prevail.

[Henry Geerlings, in the Holland Evening Sentinel, Michigan]

There must be the sacrificial spirit in true friendship. Selfishness is a stranger to true friendship. It does not speak the language of friendship. It does not know the warmth of friendship's heart. It is not acquainted with the greatness of friendship's soul. Real friendship lives for the welfare of the friend. It cannot enjoy life if it cannot spend itself. It feels no thrill if there is no daily adventure for the object of its love.

All of this calls to our minds the friend of friends. Life is empty and largely fruitless without the friend that sticketh closer than a brother. It must have sent a thrill through the hearts of his disciples to hear [Jesus] call them friends. And it was more than a name that he made use of. He had shown toward them all the qualities of love and patience and sympathy and forbearance and appreciation, and they had come to think of him as their friend.

[Rev. Herbert Crabtree, in the Reporter, Stalybridge, Lancashire, England]

What is it which makes a man a Christian? Everyone will have his own answer to that question, but is there any common ground upon which everyone is likely to agree?

It would be rash of me to propound a reply myself, but let me quote a highly esteemed writer of a former generation, Professor Henry Drummond: "To be a Christian is to duplicate in modern life the spirit, the method, and the aims of Jesus; it is to follow, through the world, the footprints he left behind." ...

The oldest of all the names by which the religion of the followers of Christ [Jesus] has been known is "the way." It is used no less than six times in the book of the Acts (a title which itself suggests that the deeds of the apostles were what impressed the world), but it is found nowhere else in the New Testament. From it we may gather that it was a particular manner of life which first arrested attention. The disciples of Christ [Jesus] did not strike their contemporaries as being signally different from them because of their novel beliefs, but because of a certain temper and spirit, a certain standard of sanctity, which they endeavored to exemplify. They spoke to one another by names which, familiar enough to us, indicated an affectionate and fraternal relationship that was unusual. Terms like "brethren," "beloved," and "the saints" suggest a kind of fellowship and form of life which was only peculiar because it expressed the kinship which these people felt they possessed in the spirit of Christ.

Some years ago there was discovered an early document of considerable importance: the Didache, or "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." It dates from about 130 to 160 A. D., and throws valuable light upon the views of the early church. It begins: "The way of life is this: First, thou shalt love the Lord who made thee; second, thy neighbour as thyself. ..." For the most part it is concerned with simple, practical precepts. "Thy speech shalt not be false or empty, but filled with doing. Thou shalt not hate any man, but some thou shalt reprove, on some thou shalt have compassion, for some thou shalt pray, and some thou shalt love above thine own life. ... Thou shalt not make division, but shalt pacify them that are at strife. ... Thou shalt hate hypocrisy and everything that is not pleasing to the Lord. ... This is the way of life."

When this document was written, belief had not yet become ordered and fixed, but there was no doubt as to what was expected by the Christian fellowship of its members. It would keep most of us pretty busy trying to live up to it today. ...

The only way to learn a thing is to practice it. You won't learn music by looking at scales; you must practice them. Children learn their multiplication tables by using them; older students learn a foreign language by speaking it; and of all of us it can be said that though we might possess all knowledge and understand all mysteries, if our practical deeds were devoid of love it would profit us nothing.

The only way then to make Christianity a creative force in the world is for ordinary men and women to feel their lives changed by it. They must put away pretense and make-believe, and pray for the will to live adventurous lives, destroying the foul giants of deceit, lust, cruelty, vanity, and greed. To quote John Drinkwater:

"Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."

[Harry Emerson Fosdick, in the Christian World, London, England]

Everyone knows how commonly our high determinations peter out. We resolve that we will overcome some unfortunate habit, will have a lovelier family life, will deepen our friendships, will do better work in our vocations, or, thinking as citizens, that, God helping us, we will stay out of war. But such resolutions concern final ends rather than the means to them, and our wills cannot deal directly with ends, only with means, so that, making high idealistic decisions about ends and letting the means take care of themselves, we wake up in a few months to discover that the means themselves have determined the ends. ...

We never can get peace by unpeaceful methods or democracy by undemocratic methods or liberty by illiberal methods. Always the means we use must partake of the quality of the goal we seek. It is a towering falsehood that the end justifies the means. The profound truth is that always and everywhere the means determine the end. ...

Finally, let us come more closely to grips with this matter in reference to our Christian living. Why is that so unsatisfactory and ineffective? The trouble is that, when it comes to genuine Christian living, fine in quality, radiant in influence, steady in difficulty, victorious in temptation, aware of inward resources of spiritual power, we applaud the ideal, but we take no pains with the means of reaching it. We need constantly practiced methods—worship, prayer, quiet hours, directed reading, directed meditation, fellowship in the church, where the social forces of common aspiration come to our help. ...

He who picks up one end of a stick picks up the other. He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end.

[From the Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada]

Fear breeds suspicion and distrust. Love does the reverse. There is beauty in love, there is ugliness in fear. How beautifully is the way in which we should regard God expressed by the Psalmist in that familiar Psalm which begins with, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want," with its comforting words, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil"!

[Robert Quillen, in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York]

One of the greatest mysteries in a puzzling universe is the sick world's reluctance to use the balm that would cure it.

For ages the great and wise have searched in vain for a means of ending warfare and strife, yet all the while they have known the right and only method and have refused to make use of it.

Today every ruler in Christendom must know in his heart that the teachings of Christ would truly save the world, yet it is not likely that anything could induce any one of them to advocate Christianity as the solution of mankind's problems.

He would be afraid of ridicule; afraid of religious conflict; afraid of those scornful, practical men who think religions is "all right in its place" but too "visionary" for a world in which might is right.

Practical people with honest minds may justly ask, "If Christianity could prevent war and strife, why has it achieved nothing in two thousand years of trial?" ...

Only the few, through the ages, understood that Christianity as Christ [Jesus] taught it is a way of living—a way of brotherly love, unselfishness, service, and forgiveness—and these found peace and quiet, happiness and freedom from all anxieties.

The most hard-boiled cynic, though scorning all religion, can see that the way of Christ would save the world if people would follow it. ...

All man's wisdom has found no other way. Is it proof of superior intelligence to reject the only way that can work?

[Dr. Frank Lowe, as quoted in the Tribune, San Diego, California]

When anybody—inspired by God's perfect pattern, Christ—loves enough to give enough, he will have faith enough to taste of immortality now. This is the whole message of the Christian religion.