A fortnightly report of developments in religion

The right of local presbyteries to “receive, dismiss, ordain, install, remove, and judge ministers” was upheld last month by the 174th annual General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. meeting in Denver.

The General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission overruled two synodical decisions. A commission statement approved by the assembly declared:

“We are deciding that in our church’s system of constitutional government the presbyteries, now and historically, bear the heavy and primary responsibility of determining the qualifications of our ministers within the framework of our constitutional documents.”

The assembly thus reversed a ruling of the Synod of New Jersey that barred Professor John Harwood Hick of Princeton Theological Seminary from membership in the Presbytery of New Brunswick because he refused to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth.

Commissioners also upheld the Presbytery of Cincinnati, which has suspended the Rev. Maurice McCracken, a pacifist who served a six-month prison term for his refusal to pay income taxes, which, he said, would be used for military purposes.

In the Hick case, the assembly commission criticized the New Jersey Synod’s commission for irregularities in handling. Among other things, the assembly commission called the use of a round-robin letter instead of a formal meeting of the synod commission a grave error.

The main basis for the decision, however, was that of the presbytery’s rights. But the commission also called attention to the “principle of toleration” in the United Presbyterian Church, which permits a variety of theological viewpoints. It said that overturning Hick’s acceptance by the presbytery would only revive the fundamentalist-modernist controversy which shook the church earlier in the twentieth century.

Some observers interpreted the assembly decision as an indication that Dr. Stuart H. Merriam would have little chance of regaining his pulpit at Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York City (see adjoining story, “The Battle for Broadway”).

In other action, the assembly deferred action on a controversial report defining its position on church-state relations. Commissioners voted to distribute the 21,000-word report to the denomination’s local churches, presbyteries, and synods for their study and opinions. The comments are to be transmitted back to the committee which drafted the report, and it will resubmit a possibly revised report to next year’s assembly.

The Battle For Broadway

As the minister stepped to the pulpit to deliver his sermon, most of the congregation promptly rose and filed slowly out of the rear exits. The address was Broadway, New York City, but this was no musical comedy. The songs were hymns, and the people had been singing of the Church: “By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.…” On the way out, their faces reflected awareness that they were passing through a solemn hour in which the life of their church seemed to be hanging in the balances. The silence was broken by a call from the pulpit for the narthex to be cleared. A young blond minister who had watched from the rear told reporters: “It appears to me that Dr. Merriam had led some of his people to worship him instead of Jesus Christ. In the church we think of this as idolatry.”

The observer was the Rev. Edward White, the church was Broadway Presbyterian, and he had been appointed by the New York Presbytery as head of a special commission to administer the affairs of the church, from whose pulpit the presbytery had removed Dr. Stuart H. Merriam (see News Section, May 25 issue.)

The 275 members who walked out re-assembled in the basement for prayer. Of the scattered 125 who remained upstairs to sing, “Where Cross the Crowded Ways,” most were visitors. They listened to a message by Dr. J. Carter Swaim, a National Council of Churches official, and then heard the Rev. Graydon McClellan, chief administrative officer of the presbytery, read a long “Statement to the Congregation.”

The report opposes Bible reading, prayer, and religious holiday observances in public schools. In addition, it said government support of parochial schools and legislation which prohibits the distribution of birth control information are inconsistent with the principle of church-state separation. It also called for the ending of exemption from military service for ministerial candidates and ordained clergymen.

Debate on the report, however, did not deal specifically with these provisions but centered on the use of the word “secular” in the document. Some commissioners argued that this would be interpreted to mean a Godless state. An agreement was finally reached to remove the word “secular” from the report being submitted to the church.

Commissioners urged President Kennedy to end the use of federal funds for the construction of segregated housing. The assembly also called upon Presbyterians to accept the burden of maintaining a balance of power with the Communist world, but to work through nonmilitary means to achieve peace.

Turning to the liquor question, it was obvious that Presbyterians had been stung by harsh criticism which greeted last year’s assembly statement, which while encouraging voluntary abstinence, recognized that many church members in honesty and sincerity drink moderately, and called for mutual respect between those who so drink and those that abstain. The assembly reaffirmed last year’s statement, which it regarded as upholding the “historic position of voluntary abstinence” but it also went on to criticize social drinking as the frequent introduction to, and context of, problem drinking, as well as being the principal influence in attracting new drinkers.

Dr. Marshall L. Scott of Chicago, pioneer leader in church work in urban and industrial areas, was elected moderator. He was elected on the first ballot, receiving 574 out of a total of 979 votes cast, gaining the required simple majority. Two other candidates for the office were Dr. Elmer C. Elsea of Denver, who received 287 votes, and Dr. Floyd E. McGuire of Larchmont, New York, who received 118 votes.

The assembly also voted to provide “responsible” sex education for its members following adoption of a special committee report on marriage and parenthood in a changing world.

The report, which approved the medical practice of artificial insemination with certain safeguards, was endorsed overwhelmingly.

In calling for sex education, the church’s board of education was asked to develop programs for young people and adults that would “best communicate in a Christian context concepts of responsible sexuality and the basic value standards—spiritual, economic, and emotional—upon which a sound marriage can be built.”

Prefaced by the words, “this is a hard moment …,” the statement reviewed the action of the presbytery in ousting Merriam and the church session (board of elders). In a general assessment, the presbytery had noted some positive factors in the current condition of Broadway Church. Sunday morning worship attendance had tripled in the one year Merriam had been there, and so had missionary giving. Young people were being attracted and minority groups welcomed, three or four Negroes joining in one month. Merriam’s leadership talents were acknowledged, evidenced in the warm support of his congregation in the present crisis, as well as in the large amount of volunteer labor which has considerably improved the church property.

All this was reminiscent of Merriam’s Southern Presbyterian pastorate in Portsmouth, Virginia, where he doubled the church’s property within four years, while speaking out against segregation.

But the New York Presbytery had gone on to charge Merriam with impulsiveness and poor judgment, citing the minister’s introduction of his dog from the pulpit, and also his intercession with the State Department for an Iranian scholar who had charged his native government with corruption.

Historic Broadway Church, founded in 1825 and always a stronghold of theological conservatism, lies close to Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. The New York Presbytery tends toward liberalism, and though denying that “a particular theology” was an issue in its case against Merriam, it asserted he was not “adapted” to a ministry “that would be of interest and value to the university and professional community.” It spoke of his “theological inflexibility” and his criticism of “neoorthodox theologians, such as Brunner, Tillich, and Niebuhr.” His “rigid approach to theological matters is unsuitable for such work with university students and faculty members.… He appears to be absorbed with the psychology of sudden conversion to a degree that makes him impatient with the kind of disciplined thinking that is so necessary in reaching the searching student. This applies also to his preaching.”

The session was charged with being seemingly unaware of the seriousness of the foregoing “deficiencies.” The presbytery would “consider recommending Dr. Merriam for further pastorates only after he has sought the help of a professional counselor acceptable to the Committee on Ministerial Relations.” Merriam’s income would be continued up to a year’s time if he remained without a call or other employment and if he did “not interfere with Presbytery’s right to conduct the affairs” of Broadway. The congregation would be permitted to select a successor to Dr. Merriam “when the Presbytery feels that the congregation is ready to do so.”

The presbytery’s choice of an interim stated supply was not without a touch of whimsy. He was Dr. Paul Franklin Hudson, 47, who had been minister of Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis for only a little over a year when he and ten members of the session were ousted by the Indianapolis Presbytery at the end of 1961. Second Church reportedly had been fragmented by gossip and bitterness.

On May 20, the Sunday following the Broadway Church’s walkout, Dr. Hudson interpreted his as a “ministry of reconciliation.” But he preached largely to visitors, for most of the members were again downstairs for a prayer service. The New York Times described Hudson’s sermon as neoorthodox, and quoted a leading elder who told the basement throng that their church had had “137 years of evangelical gospel preaching” and wanted it restored and continued.

Merriam, 38-year-old bachelor, had been asked to remove his personal belongings from and cease attending the church which had called him with the presbytery’s approval after a two-year search for a minister. He had never been installed, however, the delay having resulted from the death of his father and subsequent illness of his mother. His predecessor at Broadway, Dr. John McComb, had been a strong fundamentalist separatist. Merriam told reporters, “I am no fighting fundamentalist, but I am a conservative evangelical, and am still eager to cooperate on all hands. I remain a convinced, loyal Presbyterian.”

His training indeed was “pure Presbyterian,” having taken him to Davidson College in North Carolina, Princeton Seminary, Toronto’s Knox College, and New College, Edinburgh, where he earned a doctorate in church history.

Merriam said that he had opposed the walkout and had intended to absent himself. But he was overrulled by mounting pressures partly brought to bear by an eminent Presbyterian clergyman who thought the situation required a dramatic protest.

The presbytery and conservative Broadway Church had been at odds for 60 years. A former moderator of presbytery has said, “We should have done this long ago.” But John Sutherland Bonnell, minister emeritus of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, called this exercise of the presbytery’s power over a congregation “disturbing to ministers and elders of the Presbyterian Church at large.”

Top legal counsel rallied to Merriam’s cause, including Dr. Edward Burns Shaw, co-author with United Presbyterian Stated Clerk Eugene Carson Blake of Presbyterian Law. The presbytery’s action is being appealed to the New York Synod.

The minister and officers of Manhattan’s Rutgers Presbyterian Church denounced the presbytery and offered Merriam the use of their church on Sunday evenings. The respected minister, the Rev. George Nicholson, had argued strongly on behalf of Merriam before the presbytery, but to no avail:

“Dr. Merriam inherited a feud. If the Archangel Gabriel himself had gone into Broadway Church he would have been in trouble. He would have had to walk a tight rope between what Presbytery thinks and wants and intends to have done in Broadway Church, and what Broadway Church wants—and perhaps rightly wants.…

“Moderator, in all honesty, is it not true that everybody knows that what Dr. Merriam did or did not do is utterly irrelevant to the real issue? He is a mere pawn in this game of power—this machine control. You know, Moderator, much better than I, that this is a plan to make Broadway Church subservient. It has been again and again cynically stated at meetings, although omitted from minutes. What Presbytery wants in Broadway is a willing ‘yes’ man. Everybody knows it but nobody says it, at least, not openly!

“Good men everywhere in this Presbytery are weary of this interminable scheming and plotting—and all of it, God help us—in the name of Christ and always after a perfunctory prayer.… Here is a young man at the beginning of his ministry and he is told of his sudden removal and this after ‘long and prayerful consideration’ (perhaps the most pious and lethal phrase in the ecclesiastical vocabulary).”

Jubilee Juncture

Along the sandy, palm-studded shores of Biscayne Bay last month, two globegirdling paths converged. The Christian and Missionary Alliance, whose task force of 860 missionaries is among the largest in Protestantism, marked its 75 th anniversary General Council in Miami by approving a merger with the smaller Missionary Church Association.

The two-thirds majority necessary for approval came easily in a secret ballot (673 for, 146 against) after delegates by a standing vote had defeated a compromise amendment which would have invited the MCA to join the CMA. Final CMA ratification of the merger plan is expected at next year’s council. A referendum will be conducted, meanwhile, among the 115 local congregations of the MCA if a basis for union is approved by its biennial General Conference. If a merger is consummated, the new organization will be known as The Missionary Alliance. It will embrace some 80,000 members in North America and nearly twice that many overseas.

The paths of the merging groups have crossed before. They had similar nineteenth-century roots characterized by emphasis on (1) missionary outreach and (2) the Spirit-filled life. MCA founders had considered uniting with the CMA back in 1898, but abandoned the plan because the nature of the CMA was considered “undenominational and without intention for organizing local churches.” The two groups have nonetheless cooperated for many years, particularly in missionary effort. Curiously enough, although the CMA now has some 1,200 churches across North America, some constituents still insist that it is not a denomination but an interdenominational missionary society.

Delegates to the six-day jubilee CMA council assembled even as war clouds hung low over two of their key mission regions, Southeast Asia and New Guinea (more than a third of overseas resources are currently committed there). The delegates called for a special day of prayer for the crisis.

Held in conjunction with the council was a week-long evangelistic campaign with Dr. Merv Rosell, who said he was grieved that military expeditions seemed to ba outpacing the evangelical missionary enterprise.

“Helicopters are carrying our guns where men have never met our God,” he declared. “We stand red-faced before people who have seen our trinkets but not our tracts, our generals but not our evangelists, our Red Cross but not the old-rugged Cross.”

Equally provocative observations on the Christian home front were voiced by Dr. A. W. Tozer, who was described by Miami Herald Religion Editor Adon Taft as “the man with perhaps the most vivid pen in the American church.” Tozer told Taft in an interview that the biggest contemporary problem in the American church is the hiatus between creed and worldliness of conduct within orthodox Christianity.

“We have religious schizophrenia today,” said Tozer, editor of the Alliance Witness and author of nearly a dozen books. “We are orthodox in creed and heterodox in conduct.”

He predicted that small groups of Christians may rise to protect the present condition of the church and bring on more divisions in Christianity.

Four days after Tozer’s remarks appeared in print, there was a sobering illustration of the disparity between preachment and practice in the council sessions themselves. A Monday morning prayer session attracted only six of the 1,460 delegates at the appointed hour, despite repeated pleas during the preceding days for intercession and dedication of life in behalf of the missionary enterprise.

CMA President Nathan Bailey said the need for a broader base for society efforts was a must.

“There are numberless opportunities for enlarging our home work,” he observed, cautioning that “the motivation must never be the by-product of the missionary dollar.”

Bailey added, “Our outreach must be for the purpose of bringing lost men to salvation and leading believers into their privileges in Christ. It is true that God-touched and God-filled men will become the source of new missionary prayer and financial support.”

The CMA has always been characterized by a pioneering faith. Latest expression is an unprecedented 15 per cent budgetary increase—to $4,500,000 for the current year—despite a domestic membership gain of less than one person per church during 1961. Last year brought the society its most serious financial crisis in recent years, but a correspondingly amazing recovery as well. The net result was the largest overseas expansion of any one year in society history. Nearly 10,000 baptisms were counted.

Back in 1882, pioneering faith was exercised in the founding of the CMA movement by Canadian-born Dr. A. B. Simpson, minister of the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church of New York City. The movement began with a meeting of seven people, and a few weeks later the work was organized with 3 5 members. Simpson’s early text was Zechariah 4:10: “For who hath despised the day of small things?” His theology was “the four-fold Gospel” exalting Christ as Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. As a result, CMA churches traditionally stress the baptism of the Holy Spirit as “a second definite work of grace.” Anointing the sick has been widely practiced, and many healings have been recorded. The emphasis on the work of the Spirit stops short of speaking in tongues, and the CMA generally does not consider itself aligned with either the holiness or the Pentecostal movements.

The CMA originally functioned as two distinct organizations, the Christian Alliance and the Evangelical Missionary Alliance, subsequently designated the International Missionary Alliance. In 1897 the two were consolidated into the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

Simpson’s associates in the early days included Henry Wilson, an Episcopalian; Kelso Carter, a Salvationist; Stephen Merritt, a Methodist; and Albert Funk, a Mennonite who subsequently became the first president of the Missionary Church Association.

By the time Simpson died in 1919 the CMA had some 340 missionaries. Today there are 860 who serve in 24 fields and preach in 180 languages. They publish about 91,000,000 pieces of literature a year and conduct 162 radio broadcasts per week in 16 languages. Most are graduates of one of CMA schools: Nyack (New York) Missionary College, St. Paul (Minnesota) Bible College, Simpson Bible College in San Francisco, and Canadian Bible College in Regina, Saskatchewan. Toccoa Falls (Georgia) Institute and Bible College also maintains links with the CMA.

The CMA is currently upgrading its schools and is working toward establishment of a graduate school of theology.

Council delegates, wary of degree mills, turned down a committee recommendation that CMA schools be empowered to grant honorary doctorates.

The MCA has only one school—Fort Wayne (Indiana) Bible College. It has always considered itself a denomination.

If it merges with the CMA it will lose its collective membership in the National Association of Evangelicals. Some CMA pastors and congregations are NAE members but the society as a whole has refused to join, although its leaders are now believed to be reconsidering.

The MCA has had merger negotiations in the past with the United Missionary Church. However, no talks are currently pending.

‘Without Compromise’

The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches at its annual meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts, last month went on record as disassociating itself “from all those who would sacrifice our historic Baptist faith” to participate in church mergers.

A resolution reaffirmed the GARB stand “as orthodox Bible-believing Baptists without compromise at all.” It said the association will maintain its “positive and unyielding loyalty to the Word of God as our absolute and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.”

A resolution on “patriotism” declared that “many people who have been jealous of our country are scorned and ridiculed for their expressed loyalties, being designated as extreme rights and superpatriots.”

The association said it was committed to no organization or movement “in the field of open support of our government,” except the American Council of Christian Churches.

Nuclear Morals

A resolution defending U. S. nuclear testing was adopted by the American Council of Christian Churches at its 20th annual spring conference in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The resolution stated that this country “has a moral obligation to its citizens and to the free world to continue nuclear testing.”

Another resolution declared that the council is “unalterably opposed” to providing U. S. wheat for Communist China.

The Presbyterian Church, U.S., practiced ground-root ecumenicity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, May 10–15. The 102nd General Assembly opened sessions in the First Baptist Church, took meals in the Centenary Methodist and Calvary Moravian churches, held regular sessions in the First Presbyterian Church, and conducted a Sunday morning Communion worship service in the Carolina Theater.

Four fraternal delegates conveyed greetings to the 452 commissioners of the assembly from their respective churches: the Reformed Church of America, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Each urged expansion of the ecumenical conversation and expressed hope for its ultimate fulfillment.

Recalling that Presbyterians had split at the time of the Civil War into “Northern” and “Southern,” Dr. William A. Morrison of the United Presbyterian Church (Northern) warned each church to “avoid a pathological fascination with the past.” He also expressed hope that none of the current conversations each church is carrying on with others, would hinder the efforts to heal the Civil War breach. Many sources, however, feel that the enthusiasm for merger between the two Presbyterian churches has been chilled by the United Church’s interest in the Episcopalian aspect of the Blake proposal. The assembly defeated a proposal looking to unite with the United Presbyterian Church by a vote of 192 to 154.

The Rev. Marion De Velder, fraternal delegate from the Reformed Church, reminded the assembly that their two churches had already adopted a Plan of Cooperation in 1874. Later the assembly unanimously adopted a new plan formulated by a joint committee of the two denominations. The plan lists 14 areas of “common concern” for study and exploration that the two churches may “seek together a fuller expression of unity in faith and action.”

In the assembly’s opening session, the Rev. Wallace M. Alston, retiring moderator, urged his denomination to thrust vigorously forward into a future whose dimensions are as large as the God who enters it with them. He called on his church to break from provincial and sectional limitations and strike out boldly into the nation and the world. The sin against the future is to measure the future with a small-guage faith. If we would keep up with God, we must run at full speed, he cried. The church, he added, needs “a fresh, first-hand experience of God’s power and presence.”

Evidence of the Southern Presbyterians’ restless energy and determination was the assembly’s adoption of a $12,000,000 capital funds campaign. This is only the fourth, but also the largest such campaign in the denomination’s 101-year history. Some $5,000,000 is earmarked for the Board of World Missions.

The assembly adopted a benevolence budget of $9,650,180. Although this is the highest in the denomination’s history, it represents only a third of one per cent increase ($33,000) over 1962—the smallest increase in the denomination’s history.

A proposal to establish a central treasury for all the assembly’s boards and agencies set off an extended debate. The announced purpose of a central treasury was to insure that each agency receive its proportionate share of the church’s total contributions. After considerable discussion the assembly voted to refer the proposal to an ad interim committee for study and report to the next assembly.

A layman, Dr. Edward Donald Grant, chemical manufacturer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was chosen as moderator. Grant came to this country as a Scottish orphan-emigrant 53 years ago. He became the church’s twelfth ruling elder to be chosen for the honor of top post in the General Assembly.

The only other nominee was Dr. Warner L. Hall, minister of the Covenant Presbyterian Church of Charlotte, North Carolina.

In other action the assembly instructed the Permanent Committee on Christian Relations to make another study of racial relations and report back to next year’s assembly. This decision was touched off by Lamar Williamson, Jr., a missionary in the Congo who asked what had been done in this area in the past year and learned that the church had not made an official pronouncement on racial matters since 1954.

The perennial battle over withdrawal from the National Council of Churches ended after a four-hour floor debate in a 294–91 vote to continue affiliation.

Another prolonged debate developed over the Layman’s Bible Commentary, published by the John Knox Press, the church’s official publishing house. An overture from the Asheville Presbytery requesting “stronger editorial safeguards” charged that the commentaries disparaged the historical accuracy and the editorial integrity of Scripture by assigning to it legends, fabrications, falsehoods, epic sagas, erroneous teaching about God, and the doctrine that all men shall be saved whether in Christ or out of Christ. The validity of the criticism was not denied, the last mentioned attracted no comment whatever, and the overture of Asheville was defeated by a vote of 323 to 74. Many analysts felt that the vote was not truly indicative of the theological position of the commissioners.

A resolution was adopted which decried the “steady barrage of blatant filth” in pornography and which urged the pastoral responsibility of providing pre-marital counseling.

The assembly also went on record as opposed to federal aid either in the form of grants or loans to private or parochial schools for any purpose.

The commissioners instructed the Permanent Judicial Commission to submit recommendations to the 1963 General Assembly for such changes in the Book of Church Order as would, with the advice and consent of the various presbyteries, allow women to be ordained to office, including that of the ministry. The decision was adopted by a 251–105 vote.

Action on a resolution which opposed the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere was postponed. It was referred to a committee for further study.

J.D.

Grass-Roots Ecumenism?

Plans were announced last month for a merger of Presbyterian and Methodist congregations in Pennsylvania. Religious News Service called it “a sort of grassroots approach” to possible merger.

Congregations of both churches, at the local level, will be encouraged to consolidate wherever they are floundering because of inadequate budgets, small memberships, and needless competition.

Officials of the two groups insist that the merger plan is “not a mandate” but at the same time there were strong indications that it would be pushed when necessary—perhaps even to the extent of denying the assigning of a pastor to a reluctant congregation.

Methodist Bishop W. Vernon Middleton and Dr. Douglas S. Vance of the United Presbyterian Church jointly announced the merger proposal.

Evanston Merger

The Evanston Institute for Ecumenical Studies, founded in 1957 to train clergy and laymen for ecumenical leadership, was merged last month with the Church Federation of Greater Chicago. A spokesman said negotiations were being conducted to have the Rev. Joseph Mathews, of the controversial Faith and Life Associates of Austin, Texas, serve as new director.

Protestant Panorama

• Fifteen Episcopal ministers were cleared last month of breach-of-peace charges in Jackson, Mississippi, where they were arrested last September in an anti-segregation demonstration. A county court judge ruled that the prosecution had not proven charges against the biracial ministers’ group.

• The National Evangelical Film Foundation cited “Dark Valley,” a motion picture produced by Gospel Films, as the best film of 1961.

• The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has become the largest Lutheran body in America, but not for long. Its 2,544,544 members now outnumber the 2,495,763 of the United Lutheran Church in America, which held the lead for 44 years. The new Lutheran Church in America, representing a merger of four churches, will have over 3,200,000 members. Its constituting convention is scheduled in Detroit June 28-July 1.

• Salaries of professors in accredited seminaries have increased some nine per cent in the last two years, according to a report of the American Association of Theological Schools. The range was given as from $5,770 to $19,318, with a median maximum of $10,350 and a median minimum of $9,120.

• The Disciples of Christ plan to establish a four-year liberal arts college in conjunction with Brevard Engineering College at Melbourne, Florida.

• An official delegation of Japanese Christian leaders visited Korea last month. It was the first group of Japanese churchmen admitted to Korea since World War II.

• The American Bible Society distributed last year 24,000,000 Bibles and Scripture portions, an all-time record, among 100 countries.

Upholding The Minority

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled last month that the First Baptist Church of Wichita may not be withdrawn from the American Baptist Convention even though a majority of the congregation voted for such an action.

Reversing a decision of a state district court, the Supreme Court declared that “not even in an autonomous Baptist church may the denomination of the church be changed by a mere majority vote.”

Two years ago the congregation, then the largest in the denomination, voted 739 to 294 to withdraw from the American Baptist Convention, the Kansas Baptist Convention, and the Wichita Association of Baptist Churches to protest the denomination’s affiliation with the National Council of Churches.

Settling The Issue

Evangelist Billy Graham says he supports a proposal for a national referendum on an amendment to the federal Constitution which would permit Bible reading and prayer recitations in public schools.

The referendum proposal originated with Dr. J. Calvin Rose, pastor of Miami Shores (Florida) Presbyterian Church.

Graham, during a visit to Miami on the eve of a major crusade in Chicago, endorsed Rose’s proposal.

“It’s a good thing,” said the evangelist. “Then we will have a majority opinion and I believe the majority has a right to be heard.”

Graham was reported to be confident that in such a referendum the U. S. citizenry would uphold the practice of Bible reading and prayer in the public schools.

Graham was slated to launch his Chicago campaign on Memorial Day. The impact of the crusade is being extended throughout North America by use of television. Five hour-long telecasts from Chicago are being carried on successive nights by stations from coast to coast.

Furor At The Fair

A controversy is being waged at the Christian Witness Pavilion of the Seattle World’s Fair over a 10-minute “Sound and Light” film dealing with the biblical themes of creation, redemption, and hope in abstract photography and symbolism.

The pavilion’s sponsors have named a three-man committee to make editorial revisions in the film, which was produced by Sacred Design Associates of Minneapolis.

Consensus of those opposing the film is that it is mystifying and confusing, instead of enlightening, according to Religious News Service.

The pavilion was visited by some 105,000 people during the fair’s first three weeks. The sponsoring organization represents 23 denominations and 19 church-related agencies.

The Washington Scene

Church colleges and other private agencies are eligible for financial aid under a newly-enacted federal program to assist educational television.

A bill passed by Congress a few weeks ago and subsequently signed by the President permits grants to tax-supported educational agencies or to nonprofit agencies “organized primarily to engage in or encourage educational television” and meeting the Federal Communications Commission regulations.

The original Senate bill called for $51,000,000 for a five-year program of grants to the states. The House version provided for a four-year program of matching grants totaling some $25,000,000. A compromise was worked out which authorizes $32,000,000 over a five-year period for federal matching grants.

Other developments in Washington:

—The Supreme Court rejected a plea that it consider the constitutionality of tax exemptions granted by the state on church properties. Its refusal allows to stand a decision of the Rhode Island Supreme Court which held that such exemptions are within the exclusive authority of the state legislature.

—President Kennedy led a tribute to Bishop Angus Dun upon his retirement as head of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Washington. Kennedy entertained Bishop and Mrs. Dun at a White House luncheon.

—Kennedy’s Memorial Day proclamation urged Americans to observe the day “by invoking the blessing of God on those who have died in defense of our country,” a phrase interpreted by many Protestants as tantamount to prayers for the dead.

—A study of the top thousand jobs in the current administration shows no religious favoritism, according to a report made by Protestant and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State. A POAU statement, however, expressed “certain areas of apprehension.” Another study “in much greater depth” was recommended in about 18 months “when the current administration shall have attained greater maturity and its trends can be more clearly ascertained.”

Act Of Reconciliation

The verger of the English village church at Great Barton, Suffolk, hanged himself in the bell tower last month. The church was immediately closed until a curious and unusual service had taken place. From the Middle Ages it has been held that blood shed in a church causes a breach between God and the worshipers, and that this can be healed only by “an act of reconciliation.” The Bishop of Dunwich conducted the necessary service at which the Archdeacon of Sudbury explained that he considered the procedure binding, and the church was reopened for worship.

Toward Interdependency

The Congregational Union of England and Wales is a somewhat loose confederation of 2,000 churches. At its annual assembly last month, the union took an important step toward becoming in fact “The Congregational Church” when it decided that a draft constitution should be considered at next year’s meeting.

The move was seen as an indication that the traditional “independency” had become “interdependency” in that Congregationalists were tending to speak with one voice on most major issues.

Good From The Gallows

His experience with a man condemned to execution for “a particularly beastly murder” was recounted by the Bishop of Durham, Dr. M. H. Harland, when last month’s Convocation of York debated a motion to abolish capital punishment. “I went to the condemned cell,” said the bishop, “and asked to be locked in with the man. He sat back smoking, looking supercilious, his feet on the table. I read to him and said he need not listen. Divine inspiration led me to read about the prodigal son. The man broke down, sobbing. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I’m a murderer.’ Then began, within a week, the most wonderful reclamation and conversion I have ever seen. Never have I been so conscious of the work of the Lord. I confirmed him, and the night before he died I was with him. He said, ‘I want no dope. I want to pay.’ He had his Communion. If ever I have seen a man fit for his maker and for eternity, that was the man.”

Dr. Harland said he wished deeply that he could vote for the motion, but because of such circumstances, where life and death and God and the next world became a reality to a condemned man, he found it very difficult to vote against capital punishment. He concluded that the hardest task he had was breaking the news to two men who had been reprieved, for they then had the task of making good again. Despite Dr. Harland’s appeal, the motion was carried by an overwhelming majority.

The London Sunday Telegraph, commenting that the Bishop of Durham was supplying an excellent theological reason for hanging everybody, said that the whole debate was “a first class illustration of the muddle that ensues when complicated social and political questions to which Christianity affords no conclusive answers are treated as though they could be settled by a straight appeal to the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount.”

Since the 1957 English-Scottish Interchurch Relations Report the Church of England has been giving special consideration to the place of laity in the church. The Bishop of Chichester, Dr. R. P. Wilson, referred to this in the Canterbury Convocation when he pointed to the weight of opinion in favor of the laity’s greater participation in church government. He suggested that there was no intrinsic difficulty about proposals which had been made to achieve this.

Strong dissent came from Canon J. Brierley of Lichfield. It was not right, he asserted, “to take away from the ordained officers of the Church the power of final veto in all matters, including the most detailed questions of theology.” Similar objections were made in the York Convocation where one speaker said that the proposals minimized the essential difference between the function of the clergy and the layman. Recommendations on the subject by the church’s committees will be fully debated at the fall convocations.

J.D.D.

Where Stands Scotland?

At a press conference in Edinburgh, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly, Dr. Nevile Davidson, cited two “long-term” subjects: his hope for the ultimate reunion of Christendom and the question of revising the Westminster Confession of Faith. Dr. Davidson, minister of Glasgow Cathedral, has been actively connected with the recent Church of Scotland-Roman Catholic meetings (see “Review of Current Religious Thought,” May 25 issue), and is a strong critic of the traditional Scottish Sabbath. Referring to the dissent by the Church and Nation Committee from the Westminster Confession’s view of Sunday observance, he said: “I think this is one of the first occasions on which the General Assembly is to be asked to depart from one of the sections of the Westminster Confession.” On the doctrine of predestination and election, among other issues, Dr. Davidson considered that the Church of Scotland had departed from the position laid down in the Confession. He added: “There have been numerous changes in the last 100 years, and a document which is adequate in the twentieth century should be different from one which was adequate in the seventeenth century.”

Commenting on the point, a former Moderator and Principal of New College, Edinburgh, Dr. Hugh Watt, said: “My personal feeling is that if the thing is to be rewritten it is not for the Church of Scotland—it is for the whole Presbyterian world.” This raises interesting features, for even at home both the Free Church of Scotland and the Free Presbyterian Church (which wield substantial influence in the Highlands and Islands) regard themselves as jealous guardians of the 316-year-old Confession, and would vigorously oppose any suggested emendation.

J.D.D.

The Second Phase

A joint commission to study differences between Anglican and Orthodox churches was agreed upon last month when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Arthur Michael Ramsey, visited the Ecumencial Patriarch Athenagoras I in Istanbul.

The commission will continue discussions opened by a similar commission in the 1930s and ended because of the war.

Seminarian Strike

A special committee set up by the Greek Ministry of Worship is studying problems involved in the prolonged strike of theological students at the Universities of Athens and Salonika.

The students walked out last February to protest a new education program which drastically cuts the number of hours devoted to religious instruction in the schools. They say the strike was called “to protect their professional interest” and “to defend Orthodoxy.” They call it a “religious renaissance” in Greece.

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. John W. Beardslee, 82, retired president of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary; in New Brunswick, New Jersey … Dr. Edward Graham Gammon, 77, president emeritus of Hampden-Sydney College and a prominent Presbyterian clergyman; in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia … Dr. Raymond T. Stamm, 68, retired professor of New Testament at the Lutheran Theological Seminary; in Allenwood, Pennsylvania … the Rev. Charles Stephen Conway Williams, 55, noted biblical commentator and Augustinian scholar; at Oxford, England … the Rev. Andrew W. Gottschall, 70, a well-known Disciples of Christ minister and a regional official of the National Conference of Christians and Jews; in Philadelphia … the Rev. Herbert E. Eberhardt, 70, superintendent of the Central Union Mission, Washington, D. C.

Appointments: As president of Grace Theological Seminary and College, Dr. Herman Hoyt … as president of William Jewell College, Dr. H. Guy Moore … as professor of biblical languages at Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Henry R. Moeller … as academic dean at Buffalo Bible Institute, the Rev. Gerald Winkleman … as an associate general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. T. Paul Verghese, a priest of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Malabar, India … as first primate of an independent Church of England in Australia, Dr. H. R. Gough … as Anglican Bishop of Sheffield, England, the Rev. Frederick John Taylor … as professor of Old Testament languages, literature, and theology at New College, Edinburgh, Dr. G. W. Anderson … as chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, Dr. John Marsh.

Citation: To Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr., the first annual Citizenship Award of the Military Chaplains Association.

Elections: As president-designate of the Council of Bishops of The Methodist Church, Bishop Paul Neff Garber of Richmond, Virginia … as Anglican Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India, Pakistan, and Burma, Dr. Hiyanirindu Lakdasa Jacob de Mel.

Nomination: As moderator of the General Assembly of the United Church of North India, Dr. William Stewart.

First Peter 2:11–25 has peculiar significance for Christians in the mid-twentieth century in the United States—and two phrases in particular. In verse 16, we read (Phillips Translation): “As free men you should never use your freedom as an excuse for doing something that is wrong, for you are at all times the servants of God.” Never using freedom, never exercising our rights to do something that is wrong. In the latter part of that passage, “Indeed this is part of your calling. For Christ suffered for you and left you a personal example, and wants you to follow in his steps.… And he personally bore our sins in his own body on the cross, so that we might be dead to sin and be alive to all that is good.”

A beautiful story has come out of one of the cities of so-called “border states,” when the schools were being integrated, a grade at a time on a gradual basis. The fateful day came when the second grade was to be integrated. The parents of a little seven-year-old girl, the story goes, were greatly concerned over her reaction and endeavored very carefully and thoughtfully to prepare her as best they could for the coming of that traumatic experience of having a person of another race introduced into her classroom. The day came and as the mother drove her to school, avoiding the issue, she tried to keep the conversation cheerful and to bolster up the little girl’s morale. Throughout the day the mother was nervous and anxious. Finally the hour came when she picked up the little girl. The little girl came bouncing out of the school with the same zest with which she had entered. As she piled into the car the mother asked, “Well, how did things go?” “Oh, just fine.” And no more information! The mother deciding it was best to avoid the subject for a while talked about other things. Finally when they sat down for a snack of a cookie and a glass of milk, she could bear it no longer and asked again, “How did things go at school today?” Again the little girl answered, “Oh just fine.” “Well, didn’t anything unusual happen?” “No. Oh yes! There was a little Negro girl in our class and she had the seat right next to me all day.” “Well, what happened—anything happen?” “Oh no, we were both so scared, we held hands all day.”

Beyond the Law of the Land

In this story there is a parable for our day and age. As Christians the thing about which you and I must be concerned in this area is first of all and last of all, reconciliation. It is the bringing of people together. The simple act of holding hands—of joining hands—not simply social justice, for social justice at times can be obtained at the price of real and genuine reconciliation. Sometimes in recent years Christians have been preoccupied with the legal aspects of race relations because it is much easier to pass laws and to enforce laws than it is to change attitudes! Yet the mere passing or the enforcing of laws is never going to accomplish that with which you and I, as Christians, must be basically concerned—the reconciliation of men with men, and of men with God. And the two are inseparably related.

Integration in our country is moving along apace. But there are dangers in this, if we do not at the same time accomplish this far greater task of Christian reconciliation.

There are people today, who are accepting integration with the simple interpretation, “After all, it’s the law.” Last year Bill Hendricks, who had been the Grand Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan’s Southern-Northern Knights, resigned his post. He said as he gave up that exalted post, “I see no way to stop racial integration and it looks to me like the best thing to do is accept it. I cannot agree to go outside of the law to maintain segregation.” This is, indeed, a significant statement. But as Christians we must be concerned on a level far deeper than simply the recognition that this is the law of the land.

There is also a real danger that we put too much emphasis upon the fact that our racial policies and practices jeopardize our national reputation in the world. I dealt with students in Japan who repeatedly wanted to be told about Little Rock and to have some explanation as to how a Christian nation could be responsible for such conduct. You have read, as I have, with a great deal of concern of the United Nation officials, who have been unable to get even a cup of coffee on Route 40 between New York and Washington. Now the word comes that two-thirds of the restaurants on Route 40 have agreed to integrate. This is perhaps an achievement, but isn’t it tragic that you and I are more concerned in one sense about our public image with other people than we are about our own American citizens who for years have gone along that route and have not been able to buy a cup of coffee. Jessy Knoba from the Congo, who made such a large place for himself in our community and in our fellowship, told how he stopped in Kansas City on his way to Ottawa University and was unable to get a cup of coffee. He spoke with a great deal of candor at the Ottawa Rotary Club and did a fine piece of work in presenting his own country. He said nothing about race relations but in the question period that followed someone asked, “What do you think of the racial situation in America? What do you think of Ottawa?” His answer was a classic. He said, “I like America, I like Ottawa, I like you, but I wish I could get a hair cut in your town.”

Lawrence Davila, a student from Nicaragua, spoke in this pulpit a week ago. In a question period afterward he was asked, “What do you think of race relations in America?” His answer: “I plead the fifth amendment”!

It has recently been suggested that the attitude of many Americans in the matter of race relations is the “basest treason.” Treason is an act whereby we give to our enemies the means whereby they can attack and possibly destroy us. The policy and practice of segregation under this definition certainly is treason.

The Need for Reconciliation

But this is not the level where you and I as Christians must basically come to grips with the problem. It is not a matter of observing the law or a matter of bettering our public image abroad. We must go deeper for basic Christian motivation. We have all seen the sign, one of the signs of the times, “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone” (or some variation of that theme). This sign points to the heart of the issue—the refusal to accept a man as a man; the exercise of one’s personal rights over and against the rights of another individual; the emphasis of right as against responsibility, obligation and opportunity.

The businessman, of course, has a right to turn away undesirable customers. He should have the right to turn a drunk out of his place of business. He should have the right to expel from his premises a rowdy customer or to refuse to let someone improperly attired come into his place of business. No one would question these rights but this is not what the sign usually implies, is it? You know it and I know it. The sign is saying in a very arbitrary way, “We will not serve certain people because of the color of their skin, because of their race, because of their social status.” During Brotherhood Week, the Ministerial Association here in Ottawa, with the approval of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce asked businessmen in town to display in their offices and store windows or on the doors of their places of businesses a very similar sign. Read the sign lest you think it is the sign with which you are familiar. It is a sign which is far more American and certainly more Christian: a sign that will simply say, “We Reserve the Right to Serve and Employ Anyone.” This more correctly testifies to the right that was sought by our Pilgrim fathers and by our forebears down through the years as they founded on this continent, as Abraham Lincoln expressed it, “A nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

“We reserve the right to serve and employ anyone.” Peter said, “As free men you should never use your freedom as an excuse for doing something that is wrong.” Have you and I, in this matter and other matters, ever used our freedom as an excuse for doing that which is wrong? Peter reminds us, “You are at all times servants of God.” He says, “You should have respect for everyone. You should love our brotherhood.”

“By this shall all men know you are my disciples if you love one another.” Not in the preaching of brotherhood. No! We do not signify that we are Christians just because we preach and talk brotherhood. No, we prove that in actions; not in the preaching but in the doing. Peter suggests that Jesus “bore our sins in his own body … so that we might be dead to sin and alive to all that is good.” This is the heart of the Christian Gospel. Jesus Christ has secured for us, has given to us the right to do right, the right to do good!

Paul wrote to the church in Galatia: “Plant your feet firmly therefore within the freedom that Christ has given us and do not let yourselves be caught up again in the shackles of slavery.” You can speak of freedom: “I am a free man.” “I can do what I please.” But think! I can go out and take a drink of liquor and get drunk—I’m free to do this, but when I exercise that freedom, I bind myself to a greater slavery. I am a freeman. I have rights. I can become a Communist (or any other example that you chose) but when I do that, I bind myself to a greater slavery. How often have you and I in this way, or in some simple way, used our freedom to bind ourselves to greater slavery? How often have we used our rights to submit to pressures and surrender responsibility?

William Hamil has written a book, How Free Are You? In this book he cites a Negro leader, who has made the claim that the Negro is the freest man in Atlanta! The reason may surprise you. He says, “The Negro is the freest man in Atlanta because he can tip his hat to anyone he chooses.” Can you understand that? The Negro can tip his hat to anyone he chooses but the white man is bound by social pressure and prejudice. He’s bound by custom, he’s bound by the fear of what others will say, what they might call him.

Do you have a freedom that tips its hat to whomever it chooses? Do you have a freedom from social or economic pressure—freedom that keeps you from asking, “What will so and so think?” A writer in the International Journal of Religious Education speaking of Christian character—the meaning of Christian character and what it is to evidence Christian character recently penned these words: “Most of all, the character of a Christian person is seen in his capacity to see others—all others whatsoever—as persons and to treat them so. To be able to see the human side of every problem; to know intuitively how things look to the person he wants to blame or who wants to blame him; to be free enough from himself and his own purposes to be aware of others and what they want to do; not ever to think of men in the mass as Negroes or Jews or Russians or Puerto Ricans, but to see each as Jesus said God saw us, each with a separate identity and significance”—we all want this! Do we have the freedom that allows us to see and to accept other men in the same way? Are we free enough from ourselves and our own purposes to be aware of others? Free not from others but free from ourselves, free from self and free from sin?

In Christ we are dead to sin, dead to self and alive to all that is good. Do you have this freedom? Do you want this freedom? Do you want the right to stand before God and an individual free unshackled? Jesus Christ offers this freedom to each and all of us. Jesus Christ died for the world, for God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son and if Jesus Christ did not die for the world, for all men, then he did not die for you and he did not die for me. “For God so loved the “World.” Are you free to accept and love all of God’s creatures? “By this shall all men know that we are Christians, if we love one another.”

RAYMOND P. JENNINGS

Minister

First Baptist Church

Ottawa, Kansas

We have a vivid recollection of an emergency call to see a man, the victim of a ghastly accident. One minute he was the picture of health; two minutes later he was dead, completely exsanguinated by a laceration of his aorta.

A massive hemorrhage always presents a problem of the first magnitude for a physician, and where such a hemorrhage continues death invariably ensues, showing so clearly the scriptural truth that “the life is in the blood.”

What then is the relationship of the blood of the Son of God, shed on Calvary, to God’s plan of redemption?

To some even the suggestion of our Lord’s shed blood brings the retort that, “This is a slaughterhouse religion, a concept of God which the modern mind cannot countenance.” The writer has heard this remark and it sends a chill down his spine. We are reminded of Hebrews 10:28: “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy [ordinary] thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”

It is not for man to question the blood atonement but humbly to accept this mysterious evidence of God’s love.

What does the Bible have to say about blood in general, and about the shed blood of Christ? The statements are so overwhelming that we can but bow and worship.

In Genesis 9:4 and Leviticus 17:11, 14 we are told categorically that life is in the blood. A person may be a perfect specimen but deprived of blood he dies.

The relationship between the blood and life carries over into the spiritual realm. To put it as bluntly as we can: Without the redeeming blood of Christ, blood shed for the remission of sins, there can be no spiritual life. This does not mean that new Christians must understand all of the theological implications involved in the atonement. It does mean that in his teaching and preaching the minister denies or ignores the blood of Christ at deadly peril to all concerned.

We are familiar with the story of the delivery of the children of Israel from Egypt. Commanded to sprinkle blood on the door posts and lintels of their houses they were comforted with these words: “… and when I see the blood, I will pass over you,” for “… the blood shall be to you a token” (Exod. 12:13). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of Moses: “Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them” (Heb. 11:28).

That there is a symbolic, or prophetic note in this incident is self-evident. Mankind stands in judgment before God and in the midst of judgment God offers mercy and forgiveness: “… and when I see the blood, I will pass over you …” reminds a sinful world that the judgment of God was poured out on his Son on Calvary—because he loves us so much. “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19:34). To what purpose? That by faith the blood of the murdered Son of God might stand between us and the righteous judgment of a holy God.

The Lamb of God fulfilled that which the blood of bulls and goats could not for the Old Covenant was superceded by the New. Jesus “… took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:27, 28).

Later the risen Lord revealed to the Apostle Paul the significance of this sacrament: “This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25b).

Writing to Jewish Christians, men and women deeply aware of sacrificial significance, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews shows the significance of the blood atonement of our Lord:

“But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people: “The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: … But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:7, 8, 11, 12).

And then to crown this glorious truth the writer adds: “For if the blood of bulls and goats …: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (vs. 13, 14).

Placing the blood of Christ in its perfect perspective the author concludes: “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Heb. 13:20, 21).

The Apostle Peter writes: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: …” (1 Pet. 1:2). Peter goes on: … “redeemed … with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (vs. 18, 19).

John takes up the theme: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

In the Revelation the elders sing: “… Thou art worthy …: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood …” (5:9), and the final victory is foretold in these words: “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death” (12:11).

Mysterious though it may be, the blood of the Son of God, shed on Calvary, is the agent of man’s redemption—“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood …” (Rom. 3:25). “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (Rom. 5:9). “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7). Why, oh why, question that which God has done for us?

Man may reject or discredit the blood of Christ but he does so to his own eternal undoing.

A bloodless religion may appeal to the esthetic sense but it is as dead as an exsanguinated corpse!

Big Questions

How does it feel to be in high school? If you have to give a commencement address you might like to find out. I have been tempted to write my own memoirs—I was a teen-age Philadelphian. But that was before television or teaching machines. In fact, the New Deal was first dealt while I was walking to high school.

To discover how today’s teens feel, I secured a fine new book by David Mallery: High School Students Speak Out. By a determined effort I cleared my study. Sue reluctantly relinquished the phone, and Charles left my desk where he had been studying solid geometry from a sports car magazine. I used to be suspicious of such material, but with the new math curriculum and auto-instruction, you never can tell.

As I say, I cleared my study and concentrated without distraction on what high school students are saying. First, what do they say about values?

“People wouldn’t be caught dead talking about that stuff!” confessed one high school girl. She had just confided in Mr. Mallery regarding her religious views. “I don’t think other people think about these things much. Maybe it’s just me.”

The next student to be interviewed told the questioner practically the same thing. Said another, “You plunge into trivialities and try to avoid the big questions.… Parents are no help. You start talking with them and they ask you if you have all your homework done or they make some big deal about what you’re going to wear.”

Rather disconcerting. Mr. Mallery wonders how a high-school curriculum can be taught without discussing the “big questions.” Yet he found high schools that seemed to manage it. Obvious pressures restrain public school teachers from expressing religious conviction. But do we give our teens a hearing on the big questions? Christian homes, schools, even churches can make “big deals” of the trivial. Teens must learn to help the Martha Circle serve, but they must see that we are ready, like the Master, to talk with Mary.

I called to Charles, but he had gone to bed. Sue was busy with German.

EUTYCHUS

Corson: Complacency’S Foe

Bishop Corson’s experience in both home and world affairs makes his writing (“Facing the Communist Menace,” Apr. 27 issue) even more meaningful. If more Americans could grasp the significance of the facts here presented there should be less complacency regarding this menace.…

HAMMELL P. SHIPPS

Medford, N. J.

Your article is one of the finest writings I have seen anywhere pointing out plainly and realistically “the Communist menace.” In a time when we see the radical right such as the Birchites with their self-styled heresy hunters and the radical left such as some church and state leaders with their hedging in their analysis of atheistic communism, I salute you for this sane article.…

ELMER B. FANT

Aldersgate Methodist Church

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The article … is especially valuable.… I think it would be a great help to freedom-loving ministers and workers if it could be printed separately and distributed widely.

MEL HOOKER

Carthage, Mo.

The articles exposing the nature and objectives of communism are very timely and will, I trust, be given wide circulation by your readers. My copy will be circulated among my church officials.

ROBERT EARLS

St. Andrew’s Church

Cobden, Ont.

The Old Princeton

In your Princeton Seminary story (News, Apr. 27 issue) it is understandable that attention should be focused upon the history of the chair of Apologetics because of the present interest in the Hick case. You are correct, of course, in singling out the failure of the General Assembly of 1926 to confirm the election of J. Gresham Machen to this chair as a significant detail in the struggle which resulted in the reorganization of Princeton in 1929. It is unfortunate, however, that the broader and deeper aspects of the basic issue are largely if not wholly overlooked in your account.

As not only Machen but also a large majority of the Princeton Faculty and of the Board of Directors believed, the issue was whether the historic position of the Seminary with regard to the authority of the Bible and the Westminster Standards was to be maintained without compromise or whether a more inclusivist policy should be adopted. The Presbyterian Church as a whole was a broadening church. And it was perhaps inevitable that an official seminary would sooner or later be compelled to conform to this broader viewpoint. But one of the most illuminating—and for many observers most heartbreaking—phases of modern church history is that in which a herculean effort was made for a period of well over a decade to arrest this current and to preserve the old Princeton. The reorganization, at any rate, soon showed that the broader view had prevailed. And in a current official Princeton publication this assessment is virtually admitted. For it is stated that Barth’s welcome to Princeton is not to be regarded as “actuated by nostalgia for the ‘Princeton theology’ which was taught by its great pre-exilic prophets.…”

NED B. STONEHOUSE

Dean of the Faculty

Westminster Theological Seminary

Philadelphia, Pa.

Thunder On The Right

The NCC does not now employ, nor has it ever employed at any time, “a full-time staff member for answering right-wingers, but not left-wingers” (Editorial, Apr. 13 issue).… Who was the source for this canard? Somebody like Fulton Lewis, Jr.?

FLETCHER COATES

Office of Information

National Council of Churches

New York, N. Y.

If this statement is founded on fact, all these circumstances (including the employee’s name) should be reported.…

JOHN R. CAMPBELL

Christ Episcopal Church

Pulaski, Va.

• NCC Office of Information has nobody permanently assigned to answering the right wing. The office collates attacks on NCC for efficiency and assigns these to a given staff member. One key worker has given “somewhat less than half-time” on an overall basis to rebuttal of the right wing, but at their peak, answering right-wing criticisms has required virtually full time. Asked to what extent left wingers assail NCC, the organization’s spokesman said “every now and then” some left-wing group finds the NCC “too conservative,” but the main source of attack (and hence the main direction of rebuttal) is the right wing.—ED.

Challenge And Response

I am not sure I understand all that Mr. Shafer is trying to say (“Come Back, O Church, Come Back,” Apr. 13 issue).… I take it [he] longs for the good old days when preachers preached and lots of laymen listened.

Although I resist the style of this article—the turned phrase, the nimble adjective and the sweeping imperative—I am more antagonized by the emotional tone.… This piece is reeking with hostility. Notice the sadistic trend of the words: “abandon … pull from under … drive them … rock them … blow them … force them.…”

Mr. Shafer is right in calling for unity in the church, but this will not come by imperial pastoral decree, no matter how “voluble, vociferous and violent,” to use his words. I think I’ll stick with William P. Merrill’s “Rise Up, O Men of God.” At least Merrill leaves me with a feeling that we are called to look forward in love, and not as Mr. Shafer, to look backward in anger.

ALBERT L. MEIBURG

North Carolina Baptist Hospitals, Inc.

Winston-Salem, N. C.

It is one of the most intelligent and challenging articles to God’s people I have had the privilege to read in a long time. It is refreshing in these days of the “soft sell” to read something fraught with deep and vital conviction.…

CLINTON H. GOODWIN

Superintendent

Union Rescue Mission

Los Angeles, Calif.

Private Interpretation!

Baptists believe in the right of the individual to interpret Scripture as God gives him to see and understand. What a blessing it was for me to walk up front in a Baptist church, to be baptized as Jesus was, and to know that Christianity can never be contained in a creed.

I feel no need or desire to believe in the historic actuality of the Virgin Birth.… I am positive the story was not intended to be taken literally. It is symbolic.… The obvious symbolism is that Jew and Gentile have at last been united to create something new—Christendom.

HELEN H. COLBERT

Alexandria, Va.

Damascus And Moscow

The little article concerning Nikita Khrushchev (“Still Munching Candy,” p. 55, Apr. 13 issue) has been read and reread with great interest. I read it to the members of my ladies’ Sunday School class—they could hardly believe it.…

We as a class are breathing instantaneous prayers for him each morning at 9 A.M. Someone has said that if all Christians would pray for Mr. Khrushchev, his conversion could be as dramatic as that of Paul. We are praying to that end. MRS. N. WILBUR SCHROCK Orrville, Ohio

Plaudits For Workshop

I am glad to see the improvement in the magazine that has come with the institution of “The Minister’s Workshop.”

ROBERT A. HELSTROM

Irons Memorial United Presbyterian

McDonald, Pa.

I am indeed delighted to know what you are doing to stir our preachers to do exegetical and expository preaching. More power to you.…

KYLE M. YATES

Dept. of Religion

Baylor University

Waco, Texas

Carnell On Scripture

In your May 11 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY you had a special report entitled “Encountering Barth in Chicago,” … written by Dr. Gordon Haddon Clark, Professor of Philosophy at Butler University. In his report Dr. Clark made two observations which require clarification.

Basically the questions raised are two in number: (1) whether Professor Edward Carnell failed to pursue adequately with Dr. Barth the question of an infallible Scripture; and (2) Dr. Clark apparently was left with the impression that Dr. Carnell does not himself believe in an inerrant Scripture.

On Tuesday, May 15, Dr. Carnell made a report to the Fuller Seminary faculty and student body and questions were asked from the floor. In response to the question raised by Dr. Clark, Dr. Carnell said that he did not pursue the question of an inerrant Scripture with Dr. Barth any further simply because the time factor, in terms of his arrangements with the University, would have meant taking the time of the person on the panel who had but 30 minutes to listen to Dr. Barth’s answers to his questions.

In connection with Dr. Carnell’s own convictions concerning the Scripture, the following is the statement he made at Fuller Seminary Chapel:

“First, I grant that I have problems. If any of you have looked at the Case book, the chapter under “Perils” is devoted to problems and I envy any of you who is so fortunate as to transcend problems. I draw a very sharp distinction, however, between the admission of difficulties and what I believe as a doctrine and I want to make it as clear as the English language can put it, that I now believe and always have believed plenary inspiration of Scripture and the inerrancy of Scripture. I sign the Seminary creed with full commitment each year and if anybody in any part of the country is interested in what I believe, I hope he will be man enough to write and ask me.”

HAROLD LINDSELL

Vice-President

Fuller Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

For Open Windows

G. C. Berkouwer’s “Review of Current Religious Thought” (Apr. 13 issue) breathes the air of an open window on God and on the best in current Roman Catholic piety.

The spiritual unity of God’s church depends upon our common amazement before him and a common humility about our apprehensions of him.

An open window on God in devotion and an open window on the world in witness and service will mean an open window on each other in the Body of Christ and a reduction of our internecine warfare with its intellectualistic and non-theological armaments. May you contribute to this desired end and not to that smug, box-like biblicist intellectualisin of which your critics accuse you.

WILLIS E. ELLIOTT

Literature Secy.

Office of Evangelism

The United Church of Christ

Cleveland, Ohio

I along with many of my liberal friends read your magazine with great appreciation. In my judgment it is the most constructive theological voice to appear on the American scene in a generation.

CHARLES M. PRESTWOOD, JR.

The Methodist Church

Eutaw, Ala.

Your theology is atrocious. It was acceptable in an earlier day but belongs to relics of the days of witchcraft and the like.…

The dogmas and creeds to which so many have been taught to cling are the forms in which men expressed spiritual values some centuries ago. The values remain, but many spiritual-minded men of a later day have found other expressions of those same values, and have turned from the old forms. These later expressions are more in harmony with present-day understanding in life and insight into its meaning.…

EUGENE POCOCK

Cleveland, Ohio

One year ago I first subscribed to CHRISTIANITY TODAY. I am so happy with it that I am enclosing $8 for a two-year renewal. I will send my copies on to my son who is starting his ministry.

I come out of a liberal tradition, but I have been steadily moving to the right through the years. I like the intellectually sound approach to the study of Christianity. I like the fair but fearless manner in which Christian movements are evaluated. I like the way it stimulates my thinking and brings me back to the basic and fundamental facts of the Gospel. May God continue to bless and use CHRISTIANITY TODAY as it helps us to see the need of putting on the whole armor of God.

GILBERT H. ROGERS

Community Methodist Church

Springfield, Minn.

With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation (Isa. 12:3).

In middle age Alexander Maclaren discovered that he was wasting hours in deciding what to preach every Sunday. At his wife’s suggestion he began doing expository work from a Bible book. This basic idea underlies the present discussion. A minister should plan all his work, according to the times, the local conditions, and his personality. Here we consider only the morning sermons.

Time for a Survey

Start now to make a survey of last year’s preaching. During the yearly vacation, as in August, spend a morning hour every weekday on a general plan for next year, with a more detailed program for the first “quarter.” Some men plan by the month, but a longer period allows for a larger number of consecutive sermons from a major book. In a month one could not do much with Genesis or Matthew.

This plan follows the Christian year, but not closely. Many nonliturgical pastors find the Christian year helpful as a general guide in what to preach. So we shall begin with December and go on through Easter. If that period seems far away, remember that meanwhile the minister has to do homework in the Bible. Who can find an easy way to do work for God?

After a prayerful study of Isaiah 1–12, two sermons showing how God prepared for the coming of Christ. The bulletin every week to tell the subject of the sermon next Sunday (not the text), and suggest passages for home reading. On the third Sunday a sermon telling the layman what to look for in Matthew as a whole, and then by paragraphs, all about our Lord as Teacher, with lessons about the Kingdom and the Cross. A minister enters the pulpit, not merely to explain a passage, but to use it now in meeting needs.

In such cooperative work a pastor ought to live with a major Bible book three months before he starts to preach. Here the idea calls for devotional reading of Isaiah 1–12 and Matthew. After each study hour put into a folder—either Isaiah, or Matthew—the gist of what the hour has taught about the passage.

Why stress devotional study? A minister should use a teaching commentary or two, with other scholarly helps, such as Unger’s Bible Dictionary (1957). Yes, but only as aids in feeding his own soul. How else can he guide laymen in reading a Bible book devotionally? Then he will preach from any part pontifically, profoundly, and impersonally.

In devotional study do not keep looking for preaching materials and texts. At this stage, “No Hunting Allowed”! Later set apart a time to single out here and there passages inspired to meet vital needs today, each time with a brief text to serve as the entrance to a Bible garden plot. In this homiletical garden the Master should have all sorts of seed-thoughts growing for use in later sermons. Each one will profit from time to grow. Often a layman remembers a sermon about as long after he hears it as the minister had had it in mind before entering the pulpit.

In church history almost every effective pastor-preacher has had some kind of homiletical garden, unknown to laymen. Spurgeon and Beecher differed about doctrine, but not about working hard before every sermon. And yet the resulting message seemed to be impromptu! Each man endured “the discipline of the pen.”

Spurgeon’s Autobiography (four large volumes) shows that he toiled over his sermons, and that he spent a full day or more every week perfecting the form of the message that went into print. T. L. Cuyler, Beecher’s pastoral neighbor and friend, in a book reported that Beecher toiled hard over his sermons. Often he held one back for weeks, or months, until it was ready. On the average he wrote out in full one sermon each working week.

While preaching from the first Gospel begin to study “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” While preaching from Acts get ready for a July series with four to five “Testimony Psalms.” This calls for “Pastoral Counseling from the Pulpit.” As a pastor, when I began to preach this way in midsummer, I saw no slump in attendance, and I enjoyed preaching as much in July as in January. But be ready!

A New Beginning

In September, a new beginning, with Genesis, “The God of the Chosen Family.” As with Matthew, a “course” here consists of consecutive sermons from selected portions of a Bible book, with a weekly bulletin notice about only one sermon in advance. Before September the pastor enjoys three months with Genesis, reading in the light of the Gospel and the Acts. With clergy and laity alike, Bible reading begins with the Gospel. Read Old Testament history in the light of the New.

Next summer the plan for the ensuing year will call for less work. The trail may lead to Micah (December) and Mark, one of Paul’s major epistles, four to five Prayer Psalms (c. 65 in all), and Exodus, “The God of the Chosen Nation.” Chosen here means Covenant. And so on for perhaps ten years, enough for a typical pastorate, with books of increased difficulty after the minister learns how to guide the layman while swimming in deep waters. But only if the minister can make sermons from Job or the Hebrews interesting and clear to a boy or girl of ten or twelve. In two university centers I found that I could do this, my sermon was clear to every professor or student.

So much for method, which should vary with the man. What of the advantages? As a rule they come mainly to be people (Isa. 55:10, 11). Here we may think about the pastor. Obviously, the benefits do not come singly, or in the following order, but in the way the winter sunshine falls on waiting snow, to protect sleeping wheat.

1. In time the pastor gets to know his Bible, as written, book by book; within each book, by the paragraph, or poetic strophe. He learns to deal with each Bible book according to its inspired purpose and character. In recent times, even among seminary graduates, only a minister here or there knows his Bible this way. When ordained, I did not.

2. Gradually a pastor assembles a working library, centered round the Bible. Better still, he knows and uses a standard exegetical commentary or two on every major Bible book, with other scholarly works of reference that will not grow out of date. He ought to keep up with the times, as about the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the Bible books themselves have not changed since B. F. Westcott and J. B. Lightfoot wrote strong commentaries. Often today, the old is better!

3. The pastor enjoys morning hours of devotion, and later hours of study for coming sermons. Never does he have to live from hand to mouth, or preach without prior weeks of prayer and study. Also, he enjoys the time of worship as the best hour of all the week. Hence he wonders why many a noble Christian lad does not covet the joy of living daily with God’s Book, and then on the Lord’s Day using it to meet the heart needs of men and women, with their blessed boys and girls. What a privilege!

4. The minister learns to enjoy dealing with a definite passage every week, and with a specific subject, instead of conducting a Cook’s Tour through the Bible, surveying heaven and earth, but never landing anywhere, so that the lay hearer feels at home at some fertile spot. In short, the pastor learns to enjoy what he does well for God and his people, and to do well what he enjoys doing as their guide in loving the Book.

5. Except during the yearly vacation such a minister remains at home and in the study, as well as in the homes of the people, five days between Sundays. Then he does his own preaching on the Lord’s Day. Never does he need to confess: “I have been busy here and there, but my own vineyard have I not kept.” To preach this way a man needs to know the people. Still more does he need to know God, through devotional reading and prayer for the people whom he leads Godward.

6. As a by-product of a Bible-loving and people-serving ministry, a man of God learns how to delegate work (Ex. 18:13–26), so that he can give himself to what the Lord expects from the pastor (Acts 6:4). Then he has time and serenity for all of his God-appointed privileges, including first-class care of the minister himself, both soul and body. What an ideal! Also, a reality today, here and there, in churches of assorted sizes, where each minister plans his work in God’s way and to His glory.

7. Gradually the pastor should begin to sense the presence of a congregational revival, such as Spurgeon and his people enjoyed year after year in the London Tabernacle. A revival does not depend on special efforts and imported leadership—which prove needful under abnormal conditions—but on “the diligent use of the outward and ordinary means of grace, where lay folk come to church regularly; bring their boys and girls of school age, to sit in the family pew; give gladly for the Lord’s work, at home and abroad; and bring to church unsaved neighbors and friends, in the spirit of prayer. All of this, I can testify, follows the right sort of planning the year’s pulpit work.

Divine Empowerment

What of the objections to such a Bible-centered plan? They all have to do with human limitations, not with lack of divine power. When God sets a man apart for this holy work, He makes it possible for this honored servant to do all the work needful in study and pulpit, in the homes of the people, and elsewhere in the community. But only if by faith a minister plans as though everything depended on him, and then trusts because he knows that everything depends on his God.

Such a God-appointed pastor expects large things from Him, and then attempts large things for Him, through the laymen whom God loves. “ ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ saith the Lord of hosts. ‘Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain’ ” (Zech. 4:6, 7).

For a fuller treatment, informative, not inspirational, see my book, Planning a Year’s Pulpit Work, Abingdon Press, 1942.

ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD¹Christianity Today’s first issue each month contains The Minister’s Workshop (see pages 44-46) with alternating introductory essays by Dr. Blackwood and Dr. Paul S. Rees. A monthly Workwood and Dr. Paul S. Rees. A monthly Workshop feature is Dr. Blackwood’s abridgment of exemplary expository sermons.—Ed.

One of the most knotty problems that come before the governing body of a church for consideration and possible disciplinary action is the psychologically abnormal person whom the psychiatrist calls a “psychopath.”

Such a person seems to possess little or no sense of guilt, or at best the sense of guilt is very distorted. In his dealing with such a person the pastor soon discovers that he is confronted by a person who seems to be almost wholly devoid of conscience. The psychopath is often on the surface a suave individual who seeks to convince the pastor and the board of his utter sincerity. If the situation calls for a penitent spirit, he may beg for forgiveness and utter the expressions of sorrow which seem to be demanded. But his confession is a performance and over it all there hangs the aura of the utterly “phoney.”

To assess the degree of their moral responsibility for their deeds poses a difficult problem, as does the degree and permanence of the spiritual change that may be expected from such erring parishioners.

The Psychopath Defined

In psychiatric classification these persons are listed as “sociopathic personality disturbances,” their illness being a severe personality disorder which manifests itself in abnormal social behavior. This type of disturbed personality is found among the so-called pathological liars, bogus check passers, repetitional forgers, and among the impersonators of officers, and professional men. Sometimes they live off the charity fund of the church, and sometimes either cannot or will not hold a job.

The psychopath is often a person of loose morality. He may flit from one spouse to another as a bee from flower to flower. He may be a sexual pervert, a homosexual; or again he may be heterosexual, openly promiscuous and engaged in prostitution. The psychopathic personality may also be among the alcoholics or drug addicts.

Psychopaths are often in danger of imprisonment. If their offense is no greater than bad checks or financial defrauding, their families often supply the monies to keep them from prison—and thus abet their evil deeds. The most dangerous psychopath, the sadistic (the sadistic raper, for example), the so-called born criminal, inevitably ends in a prison cell.

Psychopaths have been on the earth from earliest times. Solomon in Proverbs 26 lists almost all of them: liars, drunkards, sloths, sexual transgressors, and others. Some of these are simply godless sinners; some psychopaths. Proverbs 26:11 and 2 Peter 2:22 stress their antisocial behavior, that is, their failure to profit from instruction and their tendency to revert to their former habits. The psychopath is “incapable of exertions for the sake of others” as Robert M. Lindner asserts in his Rebel Without a Cause.

The Psychopath’S Capacity For Guilt

As stated, a psychopath has a distorted sense of guilt at best, and at worst seemingly little or no sense of guilt at all. Why? Does this make him less guilty? What is guilt? Is he less responsible before men and God? How must such a church member be dealt with? As a sick person, or as a sinful person? The answer depends on our world and life view.

In the Freudian view, human personality reveals three mental structural levels: the id, the realm of the unconscious; the ego, the conscious realm; and the superego, the realm of conscience. Neither a humanistic, nor a Christian-oriented psychology, assume that a child comes into the world devoid of mental endowments, its mind a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper on which life will write. Neither regards the primordial basic psychic substance with which the child enters the world as being of a high order of goodness, morally laden toward all that is noble and worthy. On the contrary, modern psychology regards the id, the child’s primary mental structure on entering the world, as being essentially a moral swamp, a cesspool squirming with all the primitive aggressive and sexual drives of the jungle, pressing from the very beginning for expression. Out of this swamp of the unconscious a garden spot, so to speak, the ego, the conscious, thinking, intellectualizing factor somehow emerges.

The ego of even the youngest infant soon discovers that it cannot reign as king without conflicting with innumerable traditional values and ideals which confront him first in the persons of his father and mother. The infant soon learns that society will enforce its mandates by a system of rewards and punishment even upon him. Thus the ego becomes aware of morality within society. Thereupon, according to Freud, the superego develops from the ego and functions as a censor, as an internalized “moral arbiter of conduct.” This develops in response to the rewards and punishments meted out by the parents, and is well developed by the age of five.

At this point anxiety is born. “We see,” says Freud, “this same ego as a poor creature owing service to three masters and consequently menaced by dangers from three directions: from the external world, from the instinctive energies or libido of the id, and from the severity of the superego.” Three kinds of anxiety of corresponding variety arise: reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety, and moral anxiety or guilt.

The normal man would like to be at peace with his own “superego” as his ego has a great dread and fear of his conscience. If he is abnormal, lacking conscience, his behavior will be at variance with society since he fails to develop anxiety because of his misdeeds.

Freud postulates that we have anxiety even before birth. He asserts: “We think it is the experience of birth … (which has) become a prototype for all occasions on which life is endangered, ever after to be reproduced again in us as the dread or anxiety condition.” The unborn serenely floating for nine months in the amniotic fluid in the womb, its temperature controlled by the thermostat of the mother, protected against all wounds by a fluid cushion, is suddenly pushed through the narrow birth canal into the world. Thus the child is anxiously thrust into a world of anxiety. The word “anxiety” itself means “narrow,” as is evident in many languages and comes to expression in the English slang “to be pushed through a knothole.”

Christian Concept Of Anxiety, Guilt

Christians must disagree with the notion that the birth canal is the primal origin of all anxiety, and that the birth experience is the prototype of all later anxiety manifestations. Man entered the world not first of all through the birth canal but by the creative act of God. Man entered life as an adult, physically and morally perfect, made in the image of God. Man as created was devoid of pathological anxiety, until the Fall. Anxiety was born out of disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden.

Anxiety, especially moral anxiety, which is guilt, is the consequence of sin. It was only after the Fall that man for the first realized the difference between “being naked,” which was anxiety laden, and his previous state of “being nude” which was free from anxiety. Only then did man hide himself from the presence of the Lord God, and being found of him cried, “I was afraid; I was naked: I hid myself.”

Guilt is separation from God, the result of sin. In this sense it is something quantitative, measurable. It is so profound a disturbance of the individual’s relationship to God, that man is intensely aware of it. This awareness is the sense of guilt. The sense of guilt is an affect, a feeling, an awareness, laden with anxiety of the deepest nature, whereas guilt itself is measurable, something objectively real, as real as writing on a page, something that only God through expiation, confession, restitution can wipe out. Even punishment cannot itself remove guilt.

With this Eden prototype of all guilt, there arose the sense of guilt, the sense of impending penalty, and the sense of the justice of the penalty. Not all men have this sense of guilt in the same degree, nor do they in the same degree fear the penalty. Nevertheless, there are few in whom the sense of guilt does not emerge in the form of a psychological complex of anxiety, fear, remorse, despair, and depression. The psychopath is one of these few.

What Makes Psychopaths Anti-Social?

With the psychopath, we are dealing with a man, who (we must thus far suppose) has as normal a brain tissue anatomically and microscopically as has the normal person. All of us “normal” people are born with a conscience as a gift of God and proceed from infancy to develop a superego in addition to the conscience. But there has been a difference congenitally and in the personality development of the psychopath. Sin plays a part both in the rearing of each child from infancy onward and also in the terrible wounds which man suffered in the fall of man. Genetically, we see at times physical defects present at birth. A child may be born without a right arm. There is no question that psychical handicaps are also transmittable from parent to child. A child may be born without the capacity of ever learning to “keep a tune.” These are not just environmental but hereditary.

It is too bold a statement to say that the psychopath is born entirely without a conscience. There is a conscience present in the newborn child destined to become a psychopath but in many cases it remains rudimentary, undeveloped. Nevertheless, the child (here under consideration) is a covenant child. In these functionally stunted people called psychopaths there is some of that light “which, coming into the world, lighteth every man” though it may seem feeble.

With the psychopath the dehumanizing occurs in the moral and spiritual realm especially, though he may become brilliant intellectually. In the psychopathic personality, the inborn hereditary psychic and spiritual defects, the minus rather than the plus qualities, as well as the psychic wounds thereafter, result in an individual who is not so much ill as stunted in his moral and spiritual development. They result in a person who lacks a sense of guilt, a person who is not so much ill as one who makes society ill, and makes it suffer.

The psychopath does not get anxious in the same way that neurotic and normal persons do, for faced with tense or guilt-laden situations, he does not have the rapid heart beat, the sweating, nor the blanching or the terror. Some say his misdeeds are the manifestations of his diseased anxiety.

The psychopath does not remain a “child.” He differs from the normal small child in that the small child is still learning lessons of conduct, of right and wrong behavior from the world about him, while the adult psychopath cannot learn these lessons. The normal child becomes guilt-laden, but the adult psychopath will blame himself scarcely at all. He can remain suave and charming. The normal child is punished, but relatives and friends will often permit the adult psychopath to continue to ruin himself, and them, by excusing him and by paying up his bad debts. They will keep him out of jail by paying for his forgeries and will prevent him from ever learning the lessons that society could teach him. The psychopath does respond to disagreeable things. He may have a fastidious nature, and quite dislike the interior of a prison cell. He may, for his own convenience, avoid repeating his antisocial behavior, yet basically he remains unchanged.

Hope For The Psychopath?

Many psychiatrists, convinced that psychopaths are hopeless cases, refuse to treat them. Others are more hopeful even though they realize the needed psychotherapy may require long periods of time, even years.

The psychopath cannot be judged in the same manner as a normal church member. There must be greater understanding. Allowances must be made, though there may be no condoning of the psychopath’s evil deeds, of his lying, defaming, stealing, sex perversion, his deviant actions of exhibitionism or homosexuality.

From the psychopath with homosexual tendencies the same continence must be demanded as one demands of the person with drives to possess an unattached woman or another’s wife. The pastor, and/or church board, must convey to the psychopath that they understand him and his problem, that they regret his stunted sexual and emotional development, but that they must require of him (as it does of normal, unmarried people) that his sexual urges be not satisfied outside of marriage. They should also inform him that non-gratification will cause him no bodily harm. Should he persist, then with no vindictive feelings but only with the deepest sorrow, the board must act in order to save the purity and the name of Christ’s Church. If naught avails, the church board must place such an individual under censure, and refuse him the privilege of coming to the Sacrament of Communion. And this is the pattern of treatment that must be accorded to all psychopaths guilty of persistent gross antisocial behavior.

Where the person is already in the hands of the law and has had previous experiences with the law, it is unwise to now buy his way free, and thereby encourage him in his misdemeanors. Imprisonment has never cured a psychopath, but it does deter him from some of his action.

Nor should one pessimistically state that there is no hope of reaching this person from the spiritual standpoint. He should not be rejected and become an outcast. He should be labored with spiritually. It is amazing what a true religious conversion can do. Are psychopaths capable of such true conversion? Many of them seem genuine penitent at times and, unless one dares to make the judgment that it is insincere, it must be accepted each time as valid, though he fall and repent over and over again.

Understanding is necessary on the part of the family and consistory. We are dealing, it is true, with “sin,” but also with a psychic handicap which is as incapacitating as a physical handicap. “Sin,” yes, but somewhat mitigated by “illness.” Love is still needed by the psychopath. One must get across to him: “We still love you though we utterly reject what you repeatedly do.” And this we may believe the pastor, the church, will do, but only if they first learn to recognize the psychopath.

Finally, the psychopath must ultimately deal with a merciful and righteous God. In his mercy God knows whether this one has ever truly placed all his hope in his Son; in his righteousness God knows the psychopath’s exact degree of psychic handicap. He knows the exact endowment this person has had in the realm of conscience and controls from birth onwards. Perhaps the subject of our discourse falls into the “few stripes” category of Luke 12:48.

The pastor’s ministry at funerals is one of the most rewarding services he renders. Preaching, teaching, counseling, visitation are all very important, yet the funeral presents a quite extraordinary opportunity to present Christ and the Christian gospel. Times of bereavement open the door for the pastor to spotlight the eternal verities which have thrust him into the Christian ministry—life’s importance and uncertainty, death’s reality and finality, the assurance of the resurrection and immortality, the power of the Cross to forgive and impart eternal life, and the comfort of the Word of God which abides forever though the grass wither and the flower fade.

When hearts are harrowed by grief and minds are stunned by the invasion of death, the pastor comes into lives engulfed by loneliness with the glorious gospel of grace and comfort. Everyone in the family circle has been brought face to face with grim reality. Hearts may now be more open to the Word of the Lord than ever before. A pastor surely has few occasions more propitious to speak the consolations of the Word of life.

At such times a faithful pastor may deepen his hold on the affections of his own people, create a place of esteem in the hearts of others, and generally enlarge the circle of his influence. One funeral frequently leads to the invitation to conduct others for the same family or circle of friends. People desire the services of a minister whom they have learned to know at a time of death. The longer the pastor who knows how to conduct funerals remains in a congregation, the more his funeral calls increase and the richer his ministry of comfort becomes.

The Priority Of Funerals

Aware of the importance of funerals, a pastor will give them priority whenever possible over other duties. Within the limits of the possible he will drop everything else to serve at a funeral. He will postpone other work, cancel plans, return from business trips and vacation spots when this is necessary, and readjust his schedule in order to conduct a funeral. There are few times in life when his people need him as much as they do on an occasion of death.

In any denomination it is the task of the pastor to comfort the bereaved. In some, however, a funeral is classified strictly as a family, and not an official, ecclesiastical service. Families in such churches will behave accordingly by requesting the minister to conduct the service, and by themselves selecting their organist and soloists. The pastor should freely offer his help and suggestions, and the family for its part will express their appreciation and consider the question of remuneration for the service in the light of the fact that the service is not an official service and the pastor is not performing an official task—one to which he is called, and for which he is paid. In such churches the family will not presume upon the pastor, but will among other things show him the courtesy of setting the day and hour of the funeral in consultation with him as well as with the mortician.

Since death keeps no schedule, funerals cannot be scheduled—except after the event. Funerals occur at unexpected times and with no patterned regularity. A pastor may go along for months without a single funeral, and then suddenly be called upon to conduct several in quick succession. The pastor should, therefore, have an abundance of appropriate funeral material at hand and in such shape as can be put to use on short notice. Often he will have very little time for preparation.

Comforting the sorrowing and conducting funeral services are matters that must always proceed with unhurried pace. Few things are less appropriate in times of sorrow than haste. Occasions of death, therefore take sizeable chunks of time from the pastor’s schedule. But they also are a drain upon his physical and spiritual energies. One cannot be sympathetic and empathetic with people in grief without feeling something of oneself drain away. This is not to be lamented.

The pastor will have his rewards, the knowledge of having rendered a vital service, the deepened perception into the basic realities of human existence, and the enduring gratitude of those who mourned and were comforted. For such things as these he must be willing to expend his energies and indeed his life. And where in his ministry can his influence go deeper; where touch the lives of so many so intimately?

Meeting Expectations

What do the bereaved expect from the officiating pastor at a funeral? They expect him to be thoroughly familiar with local funeral practices and to cooperate fully with the mortician to work out a service that will be smooth, harmonious, reverent, appropriate and satisfying. They will trust him to select and use the right Scriptures, hymn lines, and poems; to pray with power and grace, and to speak consolingly and relevantly. Certainly they will be disappointed if he fumbles and stumbles anywhere in the service.

The mourners will expect the pastor to be sympathetic, courteous, and helpful rather than merely efficient and professional. They will, ordinarily, anticipate no undue praise or extensive eulogies of the departed, but they will wish the pastor to show proper respect and appreciation for the deceased. They will hope for the best possible memorial service. After all, each person has but one funeral. There is a strange and frightening finality about this one and only funeral service. Its memories will linger a long time. Let the pastor so conduct it that it will be recalled ever after with satisfaction and appreciation by the relatives and friends of the departed. If the minister can personalize each funeral and give it some distinctive touch, he will approximate the expectations of the mourners.

In his natural desire to comply with the wishes of the bereaved, the pastor must watch and pray lest he enter into temptation. Caught up into the anguish of those who mourn the loss of someone loved and confronted with requests that are sometimes highly irregular and whimsical, he must remember his higher obligation to be loyal to his gospel and pleasing to his God. He may not compromise his message in order to convey words of comfort which are misleading and which obscure life’s ultimate realities. In these delicate situations the pastor will need to exercise both sympathy and courage with a fine sense of proportion and to choose his words with caution and precision. There are few occasions in his ministry where he will need more tact and poised judgment.

Trends In Funeral Practices

While funeral customs vary somewhat across the country, there are a few trends apparent almost everywhere. Of these the pastor should be keenly aware. Funerals are shorter than they used to be, many lasting only from 12 to 20 minutes. Longer ones seldom exceed 30 minutes. Formal funeral sermons have largely disappeared and in their stead pastors give brief talks consisting of Scriptures, poems, and appropriate remarks.

More and more funerals are being held in funeral homes or chapels. Seldom is there a funeral service at the house before the main service at the church or chapel. Opinions differ about holding funerals in church buildings. Perhaps the consensus among ministers is that the funerals of faithful church people should be held in the church building where they have been accustomed to worship and serve, even though it is not as conveniently arranged as the funeral chapel. For others, the funeral home is quite appropriate, though the use of the church building should never be denied to any who wish to use it.

Another trend is to get away from the use of vocal music at funerals and depend entirely on recorded music. When the funeral is in the church house, vocal music is, of course, always appropriate.

The closed casket funeral is becoming a practice. The relatives and friends pay their respects and view the body until the time the funeral service begins, then the morticians close the casket and it is never again opened. This gets away from the rather heathen and grueling custom of letting all the people pass around for a final look into the casket at the close of the service.

There is a growing tendency to request contributions to a favorite charity in lieu of flowers. But a funeral without any flowers, or with very few, seems quite barren and cold. A modest number of wreaths would seem in place, but an excessive number a waste.

A commendable trend is to separate the funeral rites of fraternal and military organizations from the Christian service. The other groups can have their services the day before or the evening before.

The man of God renders the best service when he has been the family pastor and has called on the departed both in health and sickness. However, he will often have to conduct funerals for people he has not known. Let him at once visit with immediate members of the family and find out all he can about the departed and the family wishes for the funeral. Ministers in liturgical churches will follow the funeral liturgies of their denominations, but the nonliturgical minister will build his own service from the data he has gleaned and from his store of funeral materials. After the music, his service may consist of an opening statement from the Scriptures, a prayer, a message, and the benediction.

At the cemetery, the pastor will precede the casket to the grave. He will take his place at the head of the grave, and, at the undertaker’s signal, conduct a brief graveside service consisting of a few verses of Scripture, a committal ritual and a benediction.

Funeral Ethics

Pastors will not ordinarily expect funeral fees from members of their own congregations. They may accept them from outsiders, particularly if the undertaker has included in his bill a charge for the minister’s services. The minister will not only not hurry through a funeral service. He will also try to be at the appointed place at least 15 minutes before the service begins, and he will tarry at the cemetery to express final condolences to the bereaved and to greet friends who linger.

The pastor who has a sense of occasion will not turn the funeral service into an “evangelistic service” or a “revival meeting.” On the other hand, he will not forget that his services were requested, and that he stands before his audience as a minister of the evangel of Christ. He will bring the Gospel to bear on the given situation of death and grief, and on the hopes and doubts of a life to come. He will say what the Word of God has to say about the circumstances which brought them together. What better opportunity to point to Christ crucified as the solution of the mystery of death, and to Christ risen as the only one who has triumphed over the kind of situation in which the bereaved find themselves. Let him point to the Living Lord, to him who is the Resurrection and the Life, as the only solution to the problem of death and the only balm for their grief. Indeed, what else can he say that under the circumstances makes any real difference? Let the true minister of the evangel be done with funeral services which are nothing but rhymed sentimentalisms, pretty poems about lovely flowers and sticky prose pointing out that dying sunsets have rosy golden hues. The living have almost been drowned in the stream of sticky, mawky emotionalism poured from the mouths of pastors who seem unable to speak a relevant word at a time of death. He who fails to speak of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ at a funeral, betrays his calling and throws away a glorious opportunity to speak of Christ to many who rarely set foot in a church.

Where the funeral involves a suicide, or some variety of scoundrel, let the pastor use tact and good sense and speak the Word of the Lord to the living. Where there is reasonable assurance that the departed is now with his Lord, let the pastor bring the monumental comfort and promise of Scripture concerning those who die in the Lord. In any and every event, let the funeral service through prayers, Scripture, message, solos, point to Christ as the only answer to the problem at hand.

Good funeral ethics include a pastoral call upon the bereaved family within a few days after the funeral, with other calls following as may seem appropriate. A planned pastoral call on the first anniversary of the funeral will show a continuing pastoral concern and will leave a special blessing.

I met the couple in my study at 7 o’clock. They had telephoned for an appointment to discuss getting married, and it was the first time I had seen them. Thirty-five years old, the woman had a daughter aged eleven. Her husband was dead. He had been killed in Korea, and she had been a widow ever since. The man was about five years younger, blond and heavily muscled. They had met five months before when he had come to Chicago to find work. She worked as a waitress. He worked for a trucking firm.

Originally she was from Texas, a Baptist. He was vague concerning his religious background, and equally vague about the jobs he had held. I wondered if he could support a home and family. As we talked I noticed that he spoke very little. He had little opportunity. She interrupted continually. Seldom did she allow him to answer a question.

In the face of these facts I sought to analyze my task as a counselor. They had a wedding license; in the eyes of the state they were qualified to be married. Was it my task to examine their spiritual qualifications? Neither was divorced. Having settled that matter, was the counseling finished? Was there nothing more to do except to explain the mechanics of rehearsal, the marriage ceremony, and of course, the fee for the custodian, if they wished a formal wedding? Certainly a pastor’s task is greater than this.

They had sought me out because I was a minister of the Gospel. Was I to ascertain in some way whether or not this was a union that God could bless? After all, why did they come to me? Were they consciously seeking God’s blessing? These are questions I bluntly ask the couples who come to me for marriage counseling. I want them to face them squarely, and I want to hear their answers. If they are really seeking God’s blessing upon the home they wish to establish, I then ask if they would be willing to accept counsel from me that didn’t go along with their plans. Would they postpone marriage because of anything I might say? There is very little purpose in counseling those who have already made up their minds so that nothing the minister might suggest would make any difference.

Are They Ready For It?

There have been times when I have felt that a couple was not ready for marriage. Early in my ministry I hesitated to say much about such things but with increasing age there has come increasing courage. I now ask them why they think their marriage would work. I point out factors that have meant unhappiness in the lives of others and ask how they expect to overcome them. These may include a great difference in age, opposite religious backgrounds or cultural and racial differences.

Does the fact that the state has granted me the privilege of conducting marriage ceremonies obligate me to do so regardless of factors which would make a successful marriage unlikely? If I refuse them will they go to some civil authority for a marriage service of bare questions: “Do you take this woman to be your wife? Do you take this man to be your husband? I now declare you to be husband and wife.” If I turn them away will I be slamming the doors of the church in their faces forever?

We have obligations to the couple sitting on the other side of the desk, and we have obligations to God. For myself, I choose to explain my sense of obligation to the couple. They have come to me freely because they want God’s blessing upon their union and the home they hope to establish. I would neither fulfill my duty to God nor to them if I didn’t state plainly what marriage means. This, for me, means reading some of the biblical statements about marriage.

In Mark 10:6–9 the husband-wife relationship is placed above all others, never to be broken by man. Marriage is a love relationship demanding submission to each other (Eph. 5:21–33 and 1 Pet. 3:1–8). Then there are the wedding vows.

Those being married deserve to be charged in advance with the obligations they are assuming. “To love, to cherish, to honor until death do us part” are pledges they choose to take “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.” They come to me because they want to take these pledges before God, and they ask their friends to come as witnesses.

These are binding vows. To honor, is something we choose to do. To cherish is something we choose or choose not to do. To love is not a disease; it also is something we choose to do. These vows are not excused or erased because somebody loses his temper or doesn’t carry his share of the load. Those who are not ready to face these obligations as eternally binding are not ready for marriage. I want assurance that the couples who come to me are taking these vows freely and accepting them as eternally binding upon their lives.

The Bacon And Egg Questions

Pre-marital counseling should make the couple aware of the adjustments required if their home is to be what they hope it will be, a harbor where there is serenity and peace. How do they picture their future home? Do both have the same picture in mind. I am not too interested in the physical description, and I refuse to put too much stock in the anticipated income. I know that for some $75 a week would be enough. Others would be doomed with so little.

All of us are creatures of habit. Does the prospective bridegroom ordinarily eat bacon, eggs and potatoes for breakfast? Does the bride-to-be think of a cup of black coffee and a piece of dry toast as being plenty? These things need to be faced in the calmness of the pre-marital relationship. In the counselor’s study they are laughable, but they could easily detonate explosions later on. Some are accustomed to eating highly seasoned foods while in some homes the pepper shaker is unknown. A person who has eaten highly seasoned foods for 25 years is not going to switch to a bland, neutral diet without pain.

Opposites seem to have a kind of fatal attraction for each other. The girl who likes concert going and the vicarious thrill of watching others perform falls in love with the activist. Suddenly a man who has been playing golf every morning and softball every evening during the summer finds himself in double harness with one who has never done anything more athletic than getting in and out of the bathtub. I try to paint these pictures for them to see. They ought to study them carefully before taking any vows.

Most persons will discover that some of the partner’s friends are intolerable to them. Old friendships have to be broken off, and this may seem unreasonable to the one who does the breaking. Is the pastor not obligated to warn them that until their marriage means more to them than any or all of their old friends, they are not ready for marriage?

The newly married enter upon new relationships. They have lived for years in the independent “I” relationship; they enter upon an interdependent relationship of “we.” This calls for a complete shift of mental and emotional gears if the marriage is to mesh without a lot of noise and bumping. Neither will have complete control of the money. Neither will be able to do as he pleases without considering the wishes of the other. Neither will be a free agent from that time forth if the marriage is to be all it is meant to be.

Are They Really In Love?

Pastors do not have the right to play God to the couples who come to them. But they should remember that those who come to be married are caught in the spell of an age-old dream, and not always are those bewitched able to tell love from physical attraction. Perhaps they are only two post-teens with palpitations.

Back in the corner of my brain there is sometimes a nagging question. Is the marriage initiated and planned by heart and mind and soul or have other forces been at work? Is the marriage a subconscious escape from parental domination? Has the girl been overwhelmed by the constant barrage of propaganda emphasizing sex appeal that saturates our culture? We live in a society that puts a frightfully high premium on sexual desirability. I would like to write another article on this sometime, because I feel that many ruin their lives trying to maintain themselves as sex symbols without really being persons. Some girls seem to feel they have failed if they haven’t gone steady at least three times by their fourteenth birthday. Living under such pressures is it not possible that some girl might say “yes” to a marriage proposal because she is haunted by the fear of being passed by? Have glands made a decision that should have been decided by mind and heart? The flipping calendar has declared them to be the right age, and they search out a heart throb with whom to set up housekeeping. Some seek to find in marriage a cheap housekeeper or an easy meal ticket. We know such things happen. Should such thoughts as these be expressed in words during the counseling sessions? The law of averages would probably bring to us some couples who have these motives ushering them down the wedding aisle.

Are They Spiritually Ready?

The counseling sessions I have with couples are sometimes punctuated by laughter, but their facial expressions tell me that there is some thinking going on too. This is encouraging. I want them to see that before they can be husbands or wives worthy of asking God’s blessing they must first be honest persons. They can’t afford to hide behind shams or be lost in dreams. Being able to fulfill the requirements for a marriage license is not enough. They have to be children of God if they are to know the ultimate in the marriage relationship. If they are not committed to Christ I feel it is my duty to ask them directly, “Why do you ask God to bless your marriage and your home if you have never accepted him as your Lord, Saviour and Redeemer?” It is not necessary for me to go into the details of this, but I believe that they have business to do with God before they take any wedding vows. I want to make sure as far as I can that they take care of that business then and there. In every wedding ceremony there are prayers. When I bow my head to petition God for the woman and man who have knelt before me I want to be able to pray, knowing that they are children of God. I regret that there were times in my early ministry when I was more timid. I now have a heavier sense of responsibility as a minister, as God’s undershepherd. Talks with my fellow pastors have convinced me that I am not alone with these feelings.

Marriage is too long a journey with too many pitfalls to be entered into lightly, and no possible number of counseling sessions can do all that should be done. Proper preparation for marriage begins at a mother’s knee. Since we as pastors have very little to do with that except in terms of educating our people, we ought to preach often on marriage. Theodore Adams, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia, is said to have made it his practice for years during the month of January to preach on marriage and courtship. These messages have been distilled into a book, “Making Your Marriage Succeed.” Such preaching as is found in this book should help a congregation face the emotional and the spiritual tensions that can wreck a marriage. Forewarned, the prospective marriage partners can face them in a calm objective atmosphere. Under these conditions problems and differences are not nearly so prickly to handle.

I need not suggest to wiser men than I that there are many springboards for such sermons in the Scriptures. The church is compared to a bride with Christ as the bridegroom. There are weddings described in both the Old and New Testaments. The duties of husband and wife are delineated, and both the dangers and boons of marriage are dramatized before our eyes in the pages of the Bible. Every time we discuss anything that applies to emotional maturity we are preparing people for marriage.

Some denominations have prepared marriage questionnaires and guides. These can be given to couples who are looking forward to marriage. Better yet, they can be given to teen-agers who anticipate a marriage far in the future. In working with our high school group we schedule programs every year which present some of the problems discussed in this article. We want our young people to be prepared for both the obligations and the joys of marriage. If this is to be, they must accept personal responsibility and be willing to pay the price to make the marriage successful. Not everything happens as it did in a story I read at least 30 years ago.

A newly married couple were determined that they would solve their problems without fighting. So it was agreed that if either one noticed anything in the other that was irritating, anything at all that carried the seeds of future trouble, he or she would write a note about it and put it in the “complaint box.” At sometime each one would go alone to the “complaint box” and take out the notes with his or her name on them. In an atmosphere of calmness and self-examination they would read the note and do their best to change. The plan seemed to work perfectly. One month rolled into two, two into three and four, and they were as happy as they had been during the honeymoon. At the end of the year they were discussing their marvelous invention for happy homes and discovered that neither had ever opened the “complaint box.” Each one had been so certain that he or she was innocent of all fault that neither one had looked in the box.

The author had his story end with a surprise twist and all lived happily ever after. Real life marriages are not often handled so neatly. Happy homes have to be paid for. The responsible pastor has to make sure that the bride and groom know the price.

Preacher In The Red*

WHY DID I EVER LEAVE CARDIFF?

In the autumn of 1923 I arrived from Wales, my native land, with the party of David Lloyd George, famed British Prime Minister. I soon found myself the guest of the African Inland Missionary Home in Brooklyn, a guest who was a very lonely and homesick young man. A large group of retired lady missionaries, sensing my loneliness, arranged an afternoon tea to help dispel my gloom. At the close I was asked to say a word to the assembled ladies, and looking them squarely in the face I exclaimed, “What language is there to describe my gratitude to you dear women for all this kindness? What word can describe my feelings?” Then in a burst of enthusiasm I thundered, “I know just the word, you are without doubt the most homely women I have ever met.” Brother, I learned the hard way that there are words used in the old country that are never used here, even if homely in Wales does mean wholesome, gracious, kind, loving and motherly.—PETER R. JOSHUA, Presbyterian Evangelist, Geneva, Illinois.