February 1927
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purchasing is done in order to keep pace with neighbors who perhaps are in better condition to have these luxuries. As one put it recently: “In these days there is no dis grace in poverty—unless your neighbors find it out.”- It is a sad fact that many who make high professions of Christianity are in debt on all hands, and distracted with care because of a desire to make as good a showing as some other person. One man admitted that he was a human dynamo—everything on him was charged. It is well to remember that the poor as well as the rich may be caught in the toils of the love.of luxury. The would-be rich, as well as the rich, have little place in their thoughts for Christ.. Bishop Mann said: “The love of the penny may create as much impediment as the love of the pound.” F EW people today who pretend to be observers of social conditions will deny that one of the most alarming problems of the hour is the lack of respect for parents and elders that is everywhere manifested among American youth. Modern ideas of home training have much to do with this situation. Parental authority is not asserted as it was in the average home of fifty years ago. Many a modern mother is trying to imitate her flapper daughters, and her chief interests are outside of the home. She is a woman of many social engagements. We heard recently of a home where the husband, in order to get money to sat isfy creditors, sold the kitchen stove, and his wife did not even discover it for a week. Nor can all the blame be laid at mother’s door. The Word of God makes father the' head of the home. His duty it is to keep the fires of the family altar burning, and to see that his children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The saying that the child, like a canoe, behaves better when paddled from the rear, has long since been forgotten. A newspaper writer said recently: “The problem as to what is to be done with parents who disobey their children will soon become one for serious consideration.” Sons and daughters are given all the rope they want in these days, and it is no wonder they soon hang themselves with it. The modernistic teachings in day schools and even churches, without a doubt, foster this spirit of anarchy among young folks. When the fear of God is taken away, it is not surprising that immature minds should become deaf, not only to parental warnings, but to the laws of the land. When the very speech of American youth savors of rebellion against Christian parents, when they openly ridicule father and mother as moss-backs, it is not strange that the same disrespect should be shown toward others. Where the hoary head is not held in honor, you need not expect to find the laws of state and country regarded. President Coolidge, some months ago, in commenting on these conditions among youth, said, with his usual keen insight : “The present-day need of American youth is more home control through parental action. There are too many indications that the functions of, parenthood are breaking down.” The Growing Disrepect Among the American Y ou th
With the Bible teachings, barred from the schools, and with mere perfumed oratory coming from many a pulpit, the need for real Christian homes is more impera tive than ever. What can counteract these pernicious influences unless there is raised up a great host of Chris tian fathers and mothers who know and do their duty as taught by the Bible ?
With joy the parent loves to trace Resemblance in the children’s face, And as he forms their docile youth, To walk the steady paths of truth, Observes them shooting into men, And lives in them life o’er again.
Superintelligence of the Present Day “ Q CIENCE has been responsible for a great change in O religious thinking,” says one of our great California scientists. “If the churches can adapt themselves to these advances in science, they will go forward. If they cannot, they will be swept aside in the back currents of progress.” We suppose there has not been a year of the nine teen hundred in which one or more of the world’s recog nized scholars have not calmly sat back in their chairs and prophecied the collapse of Christianity unless its doctrines should be restated in terms of current opinion. Skeptical thinkers have always plumed themselves on the idea that the doctrines of the Bible were coins about to go out of circulation. “Advanced scientific thinking” is a phrase hoary with age; yet some of the most absurd theories have been her-
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