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T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
June, 1935
and idolatry. The “total ity” of the State [for which the nationalism of ' Germany today stands] implies that everything is determined by and for the State, which becomes the first cause and the end of all the life of the nation and o f the individual. . . . The church becomes the .slave o f the State, being merely one of its insti tutions. F urther D enials of J esus C hrist Then there is a fourth fac tor in the religious life o f Eu rope today— fanaticism, which deifies the Virgin Mary and dethrones Jesus Christ from His Saviourhood. T h i s is sweeping over some o f the Catholic countries o f Europe like a wave. About two years ago in Belgium, two or three young girls in their teens had a vision of the Virgin Mary. They told others about this Ex perience. They had it more than once. A shrine was made in the place where that vision was seen. A hundred thou sand people came in one week to that place to worship the Virgin Mary. Whole train loads of people came even from Holland, and they gave millions and millions o f guild ers and' o f francs to erect a new shrihe to the Virgin Mary. There is also modernism that deifies humanity and hu manizes God. It is doing that in America, and it is doing just the samq thing throughout all Europe. There is still another fac tor, and that is paganism. In, this connection, I shall speak mostly of Spain and France. Perhaps Spain is less k n o w n t h a n t h e o th e r countries in Europe. It was my privilege to m e e t Mr. Percy Buffard, the founder and; director of the Spanish Gospel Mission, and through him the invitation came for us to go to Spain. P aganism in S pain I am going to mention a few things about Romanism, which in Spain is practically paganism, to reveal the need of the gospel in that land. First, the Virgin M a r y supplants Christ. She is worshiped as Saviour. I went into the ca thedral at Seville, which next to St. Peter’s at Rome is the [Continued on page 226]
forty-seven godless organiza tions in Soviet Russia in direct touch with godless groups in thirty-nine o t h e r countries. There are thirty-five antireli gious universities. There are eighty antireligious transport able museums. Magazines are printed in forty-eight lan guages and distributed to the world. Moreover, atheism is sweeping right through our own country as well as through Russia; it is permeating our schools and colleges, yes, even some o f bur churches. .G erman N ationalism — I ts S piritual S ignificance • Then in Europe today, the third factor that we find is na tionalism — that deifies govern ment and demotes God to a secondary place in the life of the State. It puts the State in the place o f God and claims; the divine right o f the State. This we see in an outstanding and almost exaggerated form in Germany today. Hitler is considered by many— and I am sorry to say even by many earnest Christians— to be Ger many’s messiah, G e rm an y ’ s saviour. He has saved Ger many no doubt from Commun ism— but unto what? I quote1 from a message given at one conference on revival in Eu r o p e ,a statement by Mrs. Wasserzug who is a German. She loves her country with in tensity o f devotion, but God has given her marvelous ,in sight into its present spiritual condition, which she fearlessly proclaims in the following words: The leader principle, ; which is one o f the things that the nationalism,stands for, means that the will o f ; a man is to rule absolutely oyer all the spheres o f life,. In .that “ I will’’ of a man, we can recognize another . ‘ : “ I will,” once‘set up against
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the sovereign will of God. It is an anti-Saviour want ing to save man according to his own will and plan. Such a principle is to be carried out in the church; then Christ is ! no more Head of it. Hitler has al ready been compared with Christ and designated as the God-sent Saviour for Germany today. He him self has proved that he is ready to carry out his ab solute will even if blood has to be shed. All this is leading to man-worshiping
Courtesy of Thos. Cook and Sod—Wagons Lits Inc., Los Angeles. On the opposite page is shown a view of the Houses of Parlia ment in London, England. Though spiritual influences in Eng land, such as the Keswick Movement and numerous missionary organizations, continue to bless the world, it is estimated that only five per cent of London's population attend the city's many churches. The scene in the Swiss Alps is not far from the famous center of aggressive leadership in the period of the Reformation. A t the top of this page is the Cathedral of Milan, in Milan, Italy, the land where recent openings for evan gelical witness afford new opportunities to the church of Christ. The scene in Holland (center) represents the country of whose spiritual state an observer writes: "The greatest need is that the people do not think they have any." In busy Paris, the Cathedral of Notre Dame (lower view), loved by tourists for the beauty of its architecture, is little used for worship.
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