T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
January, 1933
5
P r m r t s w
B y LOUIS S. BAUMAN* Long Beach, "Calif.
■ f è v S S ' f ì .w -
[This article, the first of three relating to Russia in the light of Scrip ture, has seemed too important to be confined to Dr. Bauman’s regular depart ment, Present-Day Fulfillment of Prophecy. The accompanying arresting cartoon appeared first on the front page of The Los Angeles Times and is re produced here by permission. It adds its own striking comment to the writer’s discussion of the subject.— E ditor .] " H T. 1L h is , s u r e l y , is the primeval chaos that preceded the creation o f the world !” So writes Will Durant under the caption, “ The Tragedy of Russia,” in The Saturday Evening Post (December 10, 1932), which came into the writer’s hands only about an hour before he sat down to write this article. Mr. Durant is expressing his thoughts upon entering his hotel in Moscow at the end of his long journey from Seattle. And this, after a matter-of-fact declaration that before beginning his pilgrimage to Mos cow : “1 was sympathetic with communism because I had seen in my own country the breakdown o f the most suc cessful individualist economy in history.” However, it was not “ the primeval chaos that preceded the creation o f the world,” but the. ultimate chaos o f our kosmos-age that actually greeted the eyes of Mr. Durant as he arrived in Russia, hoping to discover a “material Utopia.” Exactly that— the ultimate chaos of our present age— a chaos that shall demand the return of our Lord from heaven soon to stem the tide, or man ere long will be found sprawling on the grave of civilization, clenching naught but a blood-smeared knife in his hand, and hissing through his teeth naught but demoniac curses against God and man. Russia points to the very possible danger of mankind sink ing into no less a hell than that! Will Durant is not the only one who went to worship in “ Moscow, shrine o f the intellectuals o f the world” (as he himself calls it), and became disillusionized in the expe rience. We have just read the October issue o f The Medical Critic and Guide (New Y ork ), whose editor, William J. Robinson, Ph.G., M.D., is a man anything but friendly to the Christian faith, and (we surmise) to the Christian standards o f strict morality as well. Before leaving for Russia, he sent out a postcard to many o f his readers, on which, among other declarations as to his faith in Soviet Russia, he said: It is the only country which,-in spite o f the numerous wrongs it has committed, now alone holds aloft a beacon of light and hope to blind, struggling and blundering hu manity. And, last but not least, Stalin seems, after all, to be the right man in the right place. It was only last June that Dr. Robinson went to kneel at the “ shrine o f the intellectuals o f the world.” Speaking Russian fluently, and being a doctor, he managed to get into intimate contact with the “ shrine.” He’s bach n ow ! He writes (a bit shamefacedly) : Painful as it is for me to state my conclusion about Rus sia as I saw it, I must do so without any quibbling: . . . It is temporary purgatory for the foreign visitor . . . It is permanent, hopeless hell for the native . . . For ninety per cent of the population, Russia is now one vast prison, one hopeless hell. When we left Kiev for the train which was to bring us that evening to the Polish frontier, a number o f people near the hotel stood watching us. Did you ever *Pastor, First Brethren Church.
Courtesy Los Angeles Times. visit a prisoner in a prison ? Did you notice the expression on his face when the time of the interview came to an end, and you were going back to freedom and the open road, while he had to go back to his cell? Well, that exactly was the expression on the faces of those men and women, only many times intensified. Poor men, poor women! Poor “ free” Russians! Worship at this “ shrine o f the intellectuals o f the world” does not seem to impress all “ the intellectuals” alike, however. That very irresponsible intellectual genius, George Bernard Shaw, found Russia with its inhuman monarch and brutal bureaucracy quite “ interesting,” where upon Dr. Robinson comments: “ It is, if hell is an interest ing place.” We have seen an interesting reproduction from the communist organ in Berlin, Illustrierte Arbeiter Zeitung, under date o f July 20, 1929—a page o f photographs o f the intellectual worthies composing the Anti-imperialist League, auxiliary organization o f Bolshevism for Asia and Africa, with branches also in the United States and Latin America, and l o ! the second picture in the top row is none other than the intellectual father o f that non-understand- able something known as “ relativity”— that something seemingly created only to convince the world that its author was “ intellectual” beyond all “ common clay.” It seems to have succeeded admirably. This professor, Albert Einstein, was a member o f the World Congress called by Moscow
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