Norwich Bulletin Newspaper, October 30, 1916, Page 8

_NORWICK. BULLETIN, MONDAY, OCTUBER 30, 1916 BAYS CHURCH 18 NOT LOSING GROUND Central Baptist Pastor Answers Cur- rent Day Question at Sunday Even- _ Ing Service. n the Bunday evening service at the Dentral Baptist church t.no Rev. Joel B. Slocum, 7 mons on current day topi Ject was Is the Church mnd his text was Luke, 18-5, Son of Man Cometh Shall He Find th on Earth? n part Rev. Mr. Slocum said; Jesus was teaching a lesson of the fmportance of persevering faith and persistent prayer. He gave, as an ex- ample, the case of a peor widow who was hounded by an unprincipled ad- versary and who sought to escape from the adversary by applying to & Judge. The judge himself Gas unjust and sel- fish and turned at first a deaf ear to her request. But he ylelded, for he did not welcome the growing fre- quency of the interruptions that dis- turbed his peace of mind and his lux- ury of body. So he granted her re- quest on those purely selfish grounds Then Jesus turned from His parable to drive home the truth that man ought always to pray and not to faint: for instead of having an unjust judge who will hear their requests and amswer them because he wants to get rid of them, they have a loving Father who will hear and answer because He loves the petitioners and sympathizes with their need. But immediately follow- ing this, Jesus raised the startlicg question contained in the text. There has been considerable discus- sion from time to time as to just what Jesus did mean by these words. I do not wish at this fime to enter into that discussion. It is not exactly germain to_our purpose. Jesus had alr ly prophesied that At His second advent the disciples would find themselves in a world giv- en over to a worldliness in which God would be forgotten. On another oc- casion. He had declared prophetically and anticipating the hardships that are to test His followers, seems to ques- tion as_to whether faith would hold | out. Would the widow’s faith con- tinue? Jesus thus became temporas to the outcome, it He had a vision so m keener than His most far-seeing con- | temporaries; it was because all the weaknesses of human kind.in all tpe show centuries since His day were as patent to Him then as are to us the that question in His ¥ wonder that in our rineteen centuries of v, men should be asking: the church losing ground 7" There have always been those who are ready to announce the failure of Christ and the church. From time tmmemorial there have been critics who have relegated Christianity 1o the limbo of out-grown things. Age after age have witnessed conventions d the church out of ex- nd yet these great realities v of persisting. They con- long after they are ex- the councils of men. cn that T wish to dis- and all that goes w t acute since the | The apparent d case against prove aimost at the church of Ji church: that it nq much as they need i monstrous thing to con a church of Jesus itution n the c 1 that B T e s et | v Is coming and the sk vith the primise of th . Industrial democra®y in bov-:1 | arrive. Shall not Chr! democracy also arrive? The z ethics will be the ethics of Jesus. There is only one programme, for the new or der and that is the programme Jesus. The best minds of our day ara | Herbert G. W is Coming 7" v ten “What is Christianit: rvdured a book entitled ence”” These are books of prophecy and they are frank but hopetul. Their counters admit that there must be =a new ordet of things and they recognizc the necessity of building the ric upoA the foundation of Chi significantly these men scarcely men- tion the church in their enumeration of the forces that are to bring about the new order. But some of us believe 1t will be with tie church as it was with Jesus, hat the stone which the builders refused has become the head stone of the cor- ner. Dr. Frederick Lynch relates that in Fngland a group of Cambridge stu- detits discouraged over the present ai- lence of the church in this great world crisis, joined themselves together in a (Continued on Page Nine)_ . éé HE KEPT us out of war” is offered by the Democratic Party as a statement of a supreme accomplish- ment. That slogan is false. To accept it without thought. or reason is dangerous to the life of the nation. For months we have been conducting a border war with Mexico. At Vera Cruz we demanded that our flag be saluted. The demand was refused. We landed troops; We withdrew without the salute, bringing nineteen of our dead with us and leaving our honor be- a battle followed. hind; and to this day the sa- . lute demanded has not been fired. The weakness of Mexico, not the strength of the United States, is all that has pre- vented our act of war from being turned into the serious fact of war. If the slaughter of American citizens— ren, women and children—by armed troops, if the killing of American soldiers by the sol- diers of another nation, if the sacking of our towns is not war, what is it? The Judge Advocate General of our army says it is war. The Mexicans say it is war. Wilson’s a@ct.s show it is war, but Wilson’s voice says it is peace. The Truth is that it is more than war. It is war without honor and murder without reparation. It is a condition that makes every true citizen ashamed of the spectacle we have become in the eyes of other nations. Wilson’s course vitalized civil war in Mexico and border war with us. The vacil- lating and irresolute policy of the present administration has brought humiliation upon this country, both at home and abroad. We have been at war; we are now at war; many lives have been lost; our honor has been besmirched, and yet the Democratic Party cries to the nation “He kept us out of war,” “He has protected me and mine.” The fact is that he has neglected cur greatest treasures—the lives of our citizens and the honor of our country. It is the world war in Europe, not the acts of the Wilson administration, which has kept us out of international complications that would have sorely tried our courage, and our strenath. Just prior to the outbreak of the war there was form- ing a combination of Euro- pean nations to demand of us that we stop the disorder in Mexico, to demand pro- tection of the lives and vast propery of European citizens in Mexico, to declare that these European nations would give protection by force of arms if we did not. What would that have meant? It would have meant that we must adopt a determ- ined policy to enforce order in Mexico, which was the only duty consistent with the stew- ardship which we assumed under the Monroe Doctrine; or it would have meant war or the surrender of the Monroe Doctrine. It was the accident of war in Europe which then prevented retribution for the policies of the administration in Mexico. When the war is over those nations will again press their claims and we will face the conse- quences of the Wilson poli- cy of watchful waiting. Have we sunk so low that we can approve such a policy? Have we become so morally flabby that we will tolerate its continuance? This administration has created war. It has created causes for future serious inter- national friction. = Notes and words and shades of meaning born of rhetoric rather than straightforward patriotic sincerity, have marked the course of our relations with foreign nations. Force of character, a fair and honorable course, would have closed the debate which facility of language kept open. Force of character would have stopped murder on the high sea. I Does the low estate into which we have fallen among nations make a foundation upon which to build prestige for this country or safety and moral stamina for our children? It is our tradition to honorably keep out of war but not to spinelessly creep into war. 3 Mr. Wilson has not kept us out of war. Mr. Wilson has put us into war. Myr. Wilson is making war upon the moral fiber of this nation. Has He Kept Us Out of W;?v Ll “A Nation Which Does Not Protect Its Own Citizens Has Alreadv Begun to Die” Republican National Publicity Committee i P R e