September 15 Punning Past the Danger Signal
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SEPTEMBER IsTatchman,aurae AN INTERPRETER OF THE TIMES 15 PUNNING PAST THE DANGER SIGNAL, y4-a. 4 BLASTS FLASH LIGHTS FROM THE ,Watchman's Trumpet ON PASSING EVENTS SOCIAL diseases cost $3,000,000,000 a To charge the influx of crime to the backwash of war, to prohibition, to jazz, year and result in more than ten per or any other secondary cause, is to misplace the responsibility. The prevalent cent of the deaths in a community, disregard for human authority lies much deeper. It is the asserts Chicago's health commissioner. Crime Gain inevitable outcome of the undeniable drift away from Divine The -law of retribution is inexorable. Not War's Authority. An appalling proportion -of the dwellers of earth We are reaping the results of yesteryear's Backwash (including a large percentage of professed Christians) no longer moral laxities. But we reap in eternity regard the law of God as final authority. They regard it merely as well as in this life. as advice, subject to human revision. Attempts to remedy the situation will fail in. proportion to the disregard of these principles- CURIOUSLY indicative of the changing East comes the word that the boy China, most populous of nations, with resources greater than any other, emperor, surviving head of the Manchu and an antiquity of civilization surpassing all other living nations, is gaining dynasty, has cut off his queue, much to her equilibrium. Politically and religiously she is beginning to China's surprise. It is a sign of the Far East assert her powers. Recently Chinese Christians met in confer- modern trend. The mighty East, - Finding ence at Shanghai to establish an indigenous Christian church drowsy from the hibernation of cen- Itself in which Chinese leadership is assured. Indeed, the entire turies, is bestirring herself. She will be Far East is asserting itself. Thoughtful people recognize that heard from soon. the day of the authority of Western governments over Eastern peoples is rapidly passing. 'It is the prelude to- that fuller realization of power that shall reach its calirnax- im-Armageddon, with East and West and North and South involved. BERTILLON, inventor of the Bertillon criminal identification method of phesi- T he e are more than 1,500,000 radio receiving sets in the United States, and cal measurements, died recently ait - -New York vadeymanufacturers report more than $30,000,000 in unfilled orders. Paris. His death reminds us of the fact ;All staterooms on the giant liner Leviathan are to be equipped that despite protective police measures, Earth's Mogi for radio receiving. Captain Amundsen, off for the North finger print improvements, et cetera, Spectacular ' Pole says: "By - criminologists estimate the cost of crime gap I shall float with the ice-fields over the Invention roof of the world, airplanes will take us over the North Pole. to this country to be $3,500;000 a day. With movie cameras we will get a photographic record that will Meaning?—We have reached the "fierce," never perish And by radio I shall be in daily touch, if necessary, with civilization, "perilous times" of the "lastidays." relaying reports that otherwise would be hidden for years " "The radio-telephone is perhaps the most spectacular invention that ever leaped from the brain of man," THE strike plague spreads. It has - avers Hearst's International. Yet this plaything that has become a $100,000,000 a touched the Vatican, where gendarmes year business did not begin to assume its present importance until 1921. A re- mutinied because of a dispute over " ceiving set has been installed on a Fifth Avenue bus, New York. The cars of wages, and the Swiss Guards took over police flying squadrons and fire chiefs are also equipped to receive reports and the barracks and disarmed the gen- instructions by radio. --It also brings the church service to the shut-ins and stay- darmes. It has invaded Islam too, for at-homes. The meaning of these and other amazing achievements, will be dis- in Constantinople the harem attendents cussed by; Chester A. Holt in "The World Is One-Tenth of a Second Wide," in have gone on -a strikelOrinore 'money next metiathia WATCHMAN. and shorter hours. For light on this world phenomenon which is intensifying Ina recent issue of a popular magazine of national circulation, the editor, in in seriousnessatread,"Running Past the an article entitled "Undressed Women," launches a diatribe against "our sancti- Hang& Signal'," On page 4. monious brethren," "pious hypocrites reeking with lascivious- i-To Dress ness," "advertising their mental corruption" because they Or "rail at the undressed woman." Words that smell to heaven AMERICA'S wealth is today considered to Not to Dress pour forth as he expatiates on the "degraded conceptions of the be about $250,000,000,000. Ninety-eight , prurient prude," and frantically asserts, "nakedness should be per cent of this is controlled by 2 per cent made Co Commonplace that it will have absolutely no association with sex of the people. The eight richest men of imaginings and until the race can reach this standard, we are still wallowing in the nation own $2,800,000,000. - It leis .. the wanton filth that has been spattered all over us by foul-minded prudes for many that eighteen great corporations generations." His thesis is that "to a clean mind, everything is cleanly, whole- control 1-10 ofthe wealth of thelTnited some." How illuminating! Then. salacious books, obscene pictures, unspeakable States. Such figures are disquieting diseases, and unmentionable vices and debaucheries, are all pure to the pure because of the potentialities of the situa- minded. Forsoothli Then is the sow wallowing in her mire sanitary to the aseptic tion, with so much social dynamite lying mind The noted physical culturist stenadiato unfamiliar territory when he invades around looie in the world. the precincts of theology. He quotes two scriptures descriptive of man's creation (unclothed; in purity and innocence), and demands, "How dare those who pretend RAIN-INSITRANCE companies, guarantee- to be religious try to make us believe that the image of God in which man was ing fair weather for baseball, resort originally created is obscene?" His argument seems to be that perfection and hotels, amusement places, peanut and purity' is to be gnged=be‘nakedness. Then logically complete perfection is to be "hot-dog" venders, paid out natifelhan attained only by discarding all clothing. Some of us who have traveled in foreign $500,000 to policy holders, because it lands know the fallacy -of such puerile reasoning. But the God who made man rained on the Fourth of July. Two naked in his innocency directed the wearing of garments to cover himself after hundred amusement places at Coney the loss of Edenic innocency And this command has never been reversed. Even Island collected such bad-weather in- the first pair had the moral discretion and good judgment to make for themselves surance, ranging from $100 to $5,000. aprons out of fig leaves. So the editor's premise being wrong, his conclusion can not The Giants had a $30,000 policy. Mere- but be erroneous, much as it would appeal to a growing group in this daring age. ly a little different turn to the gambling As one of America's leading weeklies says, the question "has passed beyond the wheel. stage where the critic can be accused of seeing evil where none exists." Page 2 The Watchman Magazine -6-Ne The The Newspaper at chmart Watchman for the for the NEWS Madazine MEANING WAn Interpret@:21/ the Times VOL. XXXI No. 9 NASHVILLE TENNESSEE SEPTEMBER, 1922 While millions are bewitched by the siren song of peace, Europe is SHAPING for the NEXT WAR (( E MUST realize that Eu- Dy William Q. Wirth present, Europe would again welter in Wrope is not on good terms, blood." And let us keep in mind that and that storms are arising the author of these words is no calamity which we must deal with. We had hoped that howler or gloomy pessimist. If anyone can speak with au- the end of the Great War meant the end of brute force, but thority on the world's true condition it is Britain's leader, and unless Europe's problems are solved there is no assurance therefore, whether we will or not, his words must he given that force has given way to right.' These words spoken by their due weight. Mr Lloyd George, England's prime minister, toward the But what the statesman declares, the Bible affirms. After close of the Genoa Conference, are most significant and are all is said and written, God's word must remain the final fruitful for reflection. They are part of an eloquent and most arbiter. It casts the deciding vote. If it foretells peace, sincere appeal on the part of this world leader to the European then peace we shall have, no matter how ominous the situa- nations to do something to bring about peace and stability. tion may be, and how internationally upheaved the world And can we not all sympathize with this desire? may be. If it predicts war, then war we shall have, regard- Europe is in a chaotic, disturbed, pitiable condition today. less of the hopes of well-meaning men. The same Record that It was thought when the Great War was over that Europe's could so unerringly prophesy the great empire of Rome, the political atmosphere would clear up, and the sun of amity ecclestiastieal domination of the Papacy, yes, the rise of our and peace would shed its beneficent rays upon the nations.