202
April 1927
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
Various magazines’have analyzed the statistic's gathered by the newspapers in their questionnaires concerning religion in the United States“,. If it has shown anything, it is that there are more orthodox believers than many have thought. Out of 125,- 000 replies; 85 per cent, regard the Biblé as divinely inspired. There is a direct challenge to the Church in the discovery that a large number- who belieye in God and the Bible are not church members. One writer says: “It is a striking fact that while the percentage in favor of religion in general is so strong—much above that indicating church membership—appar ently the churches have not capitalized on this inter- . est. It proves that in our great cities there is a large opportunity for the Church to demonstrate its value, even to those who are committed to religion and who, naturally, should be sympathetic toward the doctrines for which the Church stands.” There is no surprise, as the Albany News puts it, that, “the old faith stands. There are skeptics, there always have been and always will be, but there > is not- so much skepticism ás some have made it appear.” Ms D ilapidated House W HEN John Quincy Adams was eighty yearg old he met in the streets of Boston, an old friend, who shook his trembling hand and said, “Good morning. And how is John Quincy Adams today?” “Thank you,” was the ex-president’s answer, “John Quincy Adams himself is quite well, s ir; .quite well I thank you. But the house in which he lives at "present is becoming dilapidated. It is tottering upon its founda tion. Time and seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pretty well worn out. Its walls are shattered, and it trembles with every wind. The old tenement is, becoming almost uninhabitable, and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out soon; but he himself is quite well, sir; quite well.” . With that the venerable sixth President of the United States moved on with the aid of his staff. It was not long afterward that he had his second and fatal stroke of paralysis in the Capitol at Washington. “This is the last of earth,” he said, “I am content.” Thus history bears record of many who faced and met this dreadful’foe and enemy-—death, but have met it undis turbed," Such was made possible, because they put their trust in Him, who conquered death, hell and the gravé, and is alive evermore. Rev. 1 :18. The Thorn Crown AN ancient legend tells;how a monk in days long gone i l b y found the crown of thorns which had encircled the Saviour’s brow. He laid it on the altar in the chapel on Good Friday, and he and his flock looked with reverent awe on the dreadful relie, so rugged, so cruel, with its awful stains of blood. Very early on Easter morning, the monk came to the church to remove the thdrn-crown, which would be so strangely Out of. harmony with the bright thoughts of Easter Day. When lie opened the door he found the chapel filled with st wondrous perfume. The early sunlight, shining through the eastern window, fell upon tjie alfar. There the monk s,aw the crown of thorns stjjl living, but it had burst into roses of rarest love^, liness and sweetest fragrance. What a fragrant, radiant truth should' the resurrection of the Saviour be to every Christian!
Easter T HERE is no evidence that Easter was kept by the apostles or the first Christians as a resurrection festival. Even the early church fathers are silent about it. The apostles were so intent upon elevating all life to resurrection levels that they gave no thought to special feast- days for Christians. Even Chrysostom held this point of view. “The whole of time is a festival unto Christians,” he writes, in commenting on 1 Cor. 5 :7, “because of the excellency of the good things which have been given.” Bede tells us that the word Easter comes from Eost're, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, and the word was adopted by the church, and given a Chris tian significance, just as the names of the days of the week, originally the names of' pagan gods, were adopted while their an cient meanings were dropped. The church was faced with the fact of the pagan fes tival of spring. Following its policy, it adopted the festival and the name of it, but filled it with a Christian content. Easter became the festival of the resur rection. English is the only language in which this term appears. In other European lan guages the Faster festival is called by a word derived from the Hebrew passover, which, of course, falls at the same time as Easter. In Italian it is Pasqua; in Spanish, Pascua; in Danish, Paaske; in Dutch, Paasch; in Welsh, Pasg. All come from the Greek pascha.
with the Illinois River flood, the Kansas flood, the Iowa flood, two great fires in Alaska, floods in Oklahoma, a tornado in Ohio, the Florida hurricane, the Cuban hurricane; a flood in Mexico, and hurricanes in the West Indies.” To these might be added mine disasters that snuffed out 148 lives, and the explosion at Lake Denmark, New Jersey, last Jfily, which killed 21 men and destroyed $10,000,000 worth of property. * * * * “No present fact is more significant than the reaction in many nations against democracy and in faVor of one-man power.” This is the summing-up of a distinguished American, Mr, James Beck, a former Solicitor General of the United States, addressing the National Republican Club of America, “It matters not,” he said, “whether the one man be called a czar, ail emperor, a king, or a di'ctatof—the essential fact is his power. Today half of the oldest nations of Europe are in the grasp of dictators.” Sir Sidney Low said: “This year 1926 opened with a broad belt of dictatorships, extending from the Atlantic seaboard to Central Asia. Mussolini stated the game; his success has inspired imitators and adapters all over the Mediterranean and Near East area. So now we have constitutionalism suspended, or heavify fettered, in Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Turkey, and Persia.”
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