EDITORIAL AFTERTHOUGHTS
ST. LOUIS editor admonishes th a t “ those who tak e umbrel las to church should watch as well as pray.”
m ent th a t no consideration has been given to such a step and th e re 'w ill be no occasion to consider it unless Con gress by th e enactm ent of law provides for such representation. The P resident does not understand th a t any such pro posal has been made to congress,” The following indictm ent of modern styles and modern fashion chasers is from Los Angeles Times. Read it aloud in your church if you get a chance. “The people are all overwhelmed by the appalling crime wave th a t has beset the world— not only by murders, robberies and hold-ups, bu t by th e ghastly in crease in m arital unfaithfulness which clogs th e divorce courts, and th e attack s against women and girls which have become a daily departm ent of the news. The incredible and loathsome conditions cannot be overstated. They are wide spread, staggering in th e ir viciousness. And we unhesitatingly declare th a t the preposterous vulgarity and crim inal im propriety of th a t vastly increasing num ber of women who adopt these indecent modes for ‘p arty gowns’ is, if not re sponsible for the d irty conditions, at least a large and im po rtan t factor. And it is deplorable th a t as th e extrem ists jump from extreme to extreme the pre sumably decent women follow. They are slower to adopt th e füll measure of indecency, bu t each* season finds them ‘conservatively’ following a t a respect- ■ ful distance, so th a t th e modes for de cent women today were the extremes of indecency a few sho rt seasons back." During the w ar g reat emphasis was laid on th e claim of tobacco men th a t hundreds of our soldiers would not be able to survive th e pestiferous trench conditions w ithout a liberal supply of tobacco. Many sincere Christian people believed th is “ bunk ” and helped to send off th e boxes of cigarettes through the Y. M. C. A. and Red Cross. A Wash ington, paper, “Life and H ealth ,’/ quot ing an em inent scientist, says, “ If strong tobacco smoke as blown into cases con tain ing cultures of cholera, influenza, or meningitis germs, long exposures to th e smoke will have no effect on any bu t the w eakest of th e germs, and none
Isn ’t it rem arkable th a t though it took thousands- o f years to make men ou t of monkeys (so they say ), yet the process can he reversed in five m inutes? The following statem ents from Dr. W. G. Ballantine, for tw enty-four years professor of Bible a t Springfield Univer sity, the Y. M. C. A. college, shows what has been pumped into th e Y. M. C. A. secretaries of th is land and may help to account for th e d earth of spirituality in many associations. The doctor says: “We w ant men who take th e ir own m inds seriously. One of th e more con servative professors used to ask, ‘How can you expect Christian people to con trib u te to an in stitu tion th a t gives no assurance w hat it will teach ten years from now? No conscientious tru th seeker can give any assurance to any body as to his teaching. Knowledge grows by revisions. The religion of th e fu tu re must be absolutely scientific. The often repeated rem ark th a t reli gious faith moves in a world higher th an th a t of science springs from a perni cious confusion. The age of m inds w ith w ater-tigh t compartments is forever past.” And this- is th e only Y. M. C. A. train ing college in th e world. An exchange states th a t “ th e world is steadily getting b e tte r” and to prove it adds th a t “th e value of church buildings in United States is now $2,000,000,000 w ith endowments to ta l ing $500,000,000 and mortgages $200, 000,000, o r only 10 per cent.” J u st what the value of a church building has to do w ith th e stand ard of sp iritu ality maintained in its congregation, we do n o t ,know. P residen t Harding would set our m inds a t re st by th e following statem en t sent out from his office: “Many inquir ies have come to th e P resid en t relative to a contemplated nom ination of a diplo matic representative to the Vatican, and th e P residen t has though t it best to answer all of them by th e public sta te
Made with FlippingBook HTML5