Editorial Postscripts

Emergency!—Amid the breakdown of the forces of law and order, with the resultant confusion and pressing emergency, we must finish our appointed work. The things we have long predicted from the Word are now surrounding us on every hand; yet we seem slow to sense the situation, or to yield to its inseparable demands. The actualities of the last times do not seem to grip us now that we are in them. We seem as in a stupor. We go on largely as before, with a world collapsing all about us. Emergency conditions demand emergency measures—extraordinary effort, extraordinary giving, extraordinary witnessing, and extraordinary results. The old days are gone ! Do we sense it? The new days—with their intensive, rapid movements —are come. We cannot go on as before. A new vision, a new consecration, a new inten­sity from above must grip us, in order to counter the new intensity from beneath that has the earth in its malign grasp. This is the day of supreme need and opportunity, and it must be one of supreme response.

Unjust!—The practice still prevails on the part of some, of judging a man's orthodoxy and loyalty to the fundamen­tals by his personal attitude on some minor matter upon which there is and has long been difference of opinion among equally intelli­gent, earnest, and spiritual men. Such an evaluation is fundamentally unsound and unjust, and is alien to the spirit of the Chris­tian faith in general and of this movement in particular. Those who practice it should not go unrebuked.

Prognosticators!—When will some public exponents of this message learn to suppress their private speculations, and to restrain their yearning to tell the world just what will come to pass in European affairs, and the process by which it will be effected ? Last year one man preached that this present war would not break forth till our work was finished; another, after it had broken forth, said that it would be "circumscribed" and "held" from bursting forth with furious slaughter ; another, when this furious phase had actually begun, predicted it would be over in a few days; yet another proclaimed that the Papacy is backing and inspiring the axis powers. It cannot be too emphatically stressed that an individual worker has no ethical or moral right to use the public posi­tion entrusted to him as a minister, teacher, or editor in this cause, to exploit ptlrely per­sonal views which are independent of and contrary to accepted denominational positions, or upon which the church has wisely refused to take a position. If he alone were involved, that would be one thing; but the institution, conference, and often the cause at large, are usually identified in the public mind with such a personal declaration. No man has a right to commit this cause to purely speculative positions. This itch for publicity—or, more properly, notoriety—needs to be cured. We are called to teach the prophecies, not to prophesy.

Soldiers!—The worker in this cause is a soldier in the army of the Lord. He is under orders, and should go where his brethren in leadership feel that he should go. He must go where he is needed most. He may question the wisdom of the orders, but having expressed his convictions, he should go when and where he is asked to go. If a mistake has been made, the responsibility will then rest on the shoulders of those whom God has placed or permitted to be in the lead. It is surprising, however, how often time demonstrates the wis­dom of the united judgment of the brethren, and shows our personal judgment to have been limited, or in error. In any event, we are sol­diers, and must take the soldier's attitude of obedience in the army of the Lord.

Investments!—Ruin awaits this old world—ruin of property, savings, in­vestments, and even personal belongings—whenever the forces of carnage and destruc­tion are turned loose, as in war-torn Europe and Asia. Everything goes down before the modern forces of mass ruin. How many be­lievers in war-ravished countries who have lost everything on earth save life itself, must now poignantly regret that they have not put their money and investments into souls, which alone will survive the destructions of the last days. Will we who are still in favored, war-free lands learn the lesson ? Or will we, too, hold on to the tangible things of earth until they are likewise stripped from us by the forces of relentless violence ? As shepherds of the flock, we have a solemn obligation rest­ing upon us to declare the principles com­mitted to us, and to admonish our people to now place their investments in souls—the only investments that will survive the breakdown of civilization, and the fires of final world destruction as well.                                       

L. E. F.