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PrESIDENT HOOVER CHOSE as the Bible passage to kiss W
as he took the oath of office Proverbs 29: 18: ‘Where there is
no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law,
happy is he.” It was a choice inspired by a deep understand-
ing of the character and needs of our lawless times.
ONE OF THE HIGH LIGHTS of President Hoover's inaugural
address was as follows: ‘“ Our whole system of self-government
will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will en-
force, or citizens elect what laws they will support.” Obedience
is the cornerstone of earthly governments as well as of God’s.
BY POETIC LICENSE a certain shot was once ‘heard round
the world,” in the sense that its results affected the history
of the world. By actual hearing, the inauguration ceremonies
of President Hoover on March 4 were heard around the world
through radiocasting. It no longer makes great demands on
faith to believe such prophecies as Revelation 1: 7: “Behold,
He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him.”
AUTOMOBILES POWERED BY RADIO are forecast by the presi-
dent of the Marmon Motor Car Company. From a central
generating plant cars will receive their power by radio, each
car being tuned to its own wave length. Scientists will dream
of such marvels and then make them realities, yet they doubt
the power of God to hear the pravers of His people and to
give them spiritual, mental, and physical power in answer.
HycE1A, health magazine, in its March issue, sounds a
pertinent warning against the pernicious effect of the movies
on the nervous systems of children. Pictures of situations that
would tax to the utmost the endurance of adults, if actually
occurring, strain beyond the breaking point the immature
nerves of children, or else harden and brutalize. It is an
exceedingly doubtful benefit such pictures do any one; but
the evil done the children is tragic and irreparable.
THE WORLD'S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORS do not marry
flappers. Witness the type of women chosen by such promi-
nent young men as Charles Lindburgh, John Coolidge, and
Gene Tunney. The “jazz baby” type they passed by for
young women of education and accomplishments, ‘‘home
girls,” talented, studious, cultured, with more brains than
mere beauty. The standards of womanliness set forth by a
certain ancient Book are not out of date. Proverbs 31: 10-31.
FamiLy NicHT, UNINCORPORATED, iS a new organization,
with the object of combating over-organization, started by
business men of Pontiac, Michigan. It differs from other
organizations in having no dues, no officers, no meetings.
Eligible candidates must be heads of families who ‘pledge
themselves to spend one night each week rounding out the
family circle.” If the conditions that make necessary such a
movement as ‘‘family night” had been prevented by men
being thoroughly on their jobs as fathers, many of our youth
would not now be the anti-social menaces they are.
A REUNION OF ALUMNI of the Reform School at Rahway,
New Jersey, was perhaps the most unique event in the educa-
tional world within our knowledge. Two hundred men, now
prosperous, happy citizens — one a bank president, one presi-
dent of a board of education — came together recently to
express gratitude to the school and to Dr. Frank Moore,
for two decades superintendent of the school. Where there
is real rebuilding of broken lives, there is always some kindly
human builder. Where there is real salvation of broken
souls, there is always the divine personality, the one and
only Saviour, Jesus Christ.
MAY, 1929
AEE PES wo
Divine Proph
rs RL SE OF xno
I Te a er
It 1s curious that while from every corner of the earth
come reports of evidence that a large part of dry land was
once under water, so few people are willing to believe the
record of God’s word that at one time the waters of the great
deep were brought up over the highest mountains in a terrific
flood.
“To BELIEVE SINCERELY AND STRONGLY,” according to
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is more important than is the object
of the belief. We confess being unable to understand how
one can believe ‘‘sincerely and strongly” in what doesn’t
matter. We much prefer the positive faith of the great
Christian apostle who said, “I know whom I have believed.”
“THE STUDENT OF HISTORY will find nothing comparable to
the swiftness with which we are rushing toward our fate. Asa
country allows itself to lapse into a condition of sophistication,
irresponsibility, materialism, and other resultants of luxury
and wealth, it loses its place in the sun.’”’ This is the conclusion
of a survey in the North American Review of the luxury and
self-indulgence of the United States. The student of history
has found only what the student of prophecy has long known
that the Bible foretold of this age. But their conclusions are
different. The student of history sees only some more virile
nation superseding us in world influence. The student of
prophecy sees the destruction of this whole effete world at
the soon coming of Christ and the re-creation of ‘new heavens
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” 2 Peter
3:13.
“Out oF THE DUSK comes dawn,” says a church billboard,
““and out of the church comes civilization.” Tt is such faulty
logic as this that turns thinking people away from the church.
Dawn comes not from the dusk but from the sun, a power
outside of, and antagonistic to, the dusk. Civilization is not
the product of the church, but the result of the combined
efforts of mankind to make the best world possible. Civilization
is largely based on principles enunciated by Jesus Christ,
and is more or less influenced by the church. But the true
position and purpose of the church in the world is separate
from, and often antagonistic to, civilization. Civilization
exalts man in his life on earth. Through the church men are
saved for a life to come. Churchmen who have become hazy
in their view of the relation of the church to civilization should
renew their acquaintance with the Gospel of John, chapters
fourteen to seventeen.
“OUR cONCEPTION of an all-wise God would be compromised
if we thought He had finished His creation of man, knowing,
as we do, how imperfect mentally are even the smartest
people,” says an apostle of evolution. Qur conception of an
all-wise God would certainly be compromised if we thought
the best He could do was to start a world imperfectly and
depend on the blind gropings of evolutionary impulse in
matter itself for any improvement. Knowing well how im-
perfect mentally are the smartest people (and those who claim
to be the smartest are the advocates of evolution), we do not
trust their cocksure theories, but prefer to believe what God
himself has said about His own work. He says He ‘made man
upright,” and that His ‘‘ works were finished from the founda-
tion of the world.” The present imperfection is degradation
brought about by ‘‘an enemy,” and is to be ‘overcome, not
by millenniums of evolution but within our own lifetimes,
“in a moment, in the twinkling of a1 eye, at the last trump,”
by the return of Jesus to destroy His enemies and make His
friends ‘‘ incorruptible” and “immortal.”
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