Herbert Photos, Inc.
Tearing down a mosque to build a dance pavilion in
Turkey. The Turk is modernizing in more than one way
Storms
ID WATCHMAN readers ever hear of
so many and so disastrous storms,
floods, explosions, and accidents in any
given period in the history of this country
as have occurred within the past few
months? Nature itself acts like an angry
giant, taking vengeance on the world’s
inhabitants. The innocent and the help-
less suffer alike with those whom we
might think were more deserving of
punishment, if punishment it may be
called. Scores of little children are
killed and injured as a twister demolishes
a schoolhouse. Over a hundred patients,
doctors, and nurses have their lives
snuffed out by gas in a hospital. Floods
destroy many lives and millions of
dollars worth of property.
What a picture of the attitude of many
today is given by the teacher of the
school children above referred to. She
saw the storm coming, but said nothing
to the children for fear she would unduly
scare them. We receive many letters
denouncing us for scaring people by
telling them that Christ is coming soon.
But we prefer the scare to the unpre-
paredness and death... We have yet to be
convinced that safety first is pessimism,
By some these calamities are looked
upon as judgments from God; by others
as proofs that God is not love; and by
still others that life is a mere matter of
chance and luck. But there is no better
nor more satisfactory explanation of
them than is contained in God’s own
word. They are sent or allowed by Him
to teach men the lessons they need to
PAGE SIXTEEN
learn at this time. And the most im-
portant lesson is that they point to the
near end of this age and the coming of
Christ. They are warnings rather than
penalties. The ‘‘stormy wind fulfilling
His word” (Psalm 148: 8) is an instru-
ment in the Creator’s hand to save men
from greater peril. Wise indeed are
those who heed.
Stop Crime
HE Outlook and Independent com-
ments editorially on the increasing
horrible and unique crimes of today, and
says:
“Such crimes, declares the public,
banging its fist, must be stopped. But
how? Echo answers, ‘How?’ Round up
all available gangsters? Little ever
comes of it. Set detectives to work?
Jailing a criminal does not prevent
crime. Declare a world war on lawless-
ness? One is predicted by former Police
Commissioner Enright of New York as
the probable outcome of an international
police conference this fall. He prophesies
a civilization mobilized against crime.
The police, equipped with airplanes,
wireless, and television, will pluck
criminals like so many cherries.
“A pleasing prospect; but so far, in
use of modern inventions, gangsters have
kept in step with the police, if not a step
ahead of them.
“There is force in the suggestion of a
firearms expert that departments of
criminal science be established at uni-
versities to remove crime detection from
politics to scientific laboratories. This,
at least, represents an effort to deal with
the problem in fresh and realistic terms.”
We ask, Are the crime doctors actually
getting back to the schools to find the
cause of crime? Would that they were,
but their move is but to teach students to
better defect crime. But we do not need
more and better detectives. We need to
get at the sources and prevent crime being
committed at all. And the schools and
churches and motion pictures and homes
are the places to go to find the causes
and apply the remedies. It is because in
these springs of social action the word
and law of God are more and more
neglected and despised that the fabric of
our society is going to pieces today.
Universities that are content to teach
criminal law, criminal ‘detection, and
criminal history, and at the same time
teach Modernism, atheism, the “animal
origin of man, and the abolition of the
Ten Commandments, are making crimi-
nals and the criminal-minded by the
thousands. Let us get back for the pre-
vention of crime to man’s moral obliga-
tion to God.
This Just Suits the Devil
A METHODIST publishing house
has issued a book entitled, ‘The
Beliefs of 700 Ministers.” It is made up
of the answers to a questionnaire on the
subject of religious beliefs sent out to 500
ministers in charge of churches, and 200
students in five representative theological
schools who are preparing for the ministry.
Among other interesting, though dis-
tressing, conclusions drawn from the
answers is that 33 per cent of the minis-
ters and 82 per cent of the students do
not believe that the devil exists as an
actual being. And about the same per-
© centages do not believe that hell exists.
(We quite agree that there is no hell fire
now consuming the wicked. But the
Bible plainly teaches that there will be.)
It is evident from this cross-section of
ministerial belief that the whole trend is
toward entire disbelief in these two es-
sential Bible doctrines, as shown by the
much larger proportion of ministers-to-be
sharing the doubt than of preachers al-
ready in charge of churches.
And why is the doubt of the literal
existence of the devil and hell distress-
ing? Simply because these shepherds of
the flock have already reached, or are
only a consistent step from, the related
conclusions that the Bible contains
falsehoods, that the only devil, or the
only God, there is is in ourselves, and
that there is no future punishment for
the incorrigibly wicked.
This sort of thing just suits the devil.
Like the thief and the murderer, he can
carry out his nefarious plans much better
THE WATCHMAN MAGAZINE