Reading newspapers nowadays inclines one to feel gloomy. Everywhere you go, in any meeting or convention, there is likely to be someone who adds to the depression by pointing out how evil times are here in America. It didn't help when I picked up a magazine and, thumbing through it, came on this:
"It is a gloomy moment in history. Not for many years, not in the lifetime of most men who read this paper, has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. In France the political caldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty; Russia hangs as usual, like a cloud, dark and silent upon the horizons of Europe; while all the energies, and resources and influences of the British Empire are sorely tried.
"It is a solemn moment and no man can feel an indifference, which happily no man pretends to feel, in the issue of events. Of our troubles no man sees the end."
I almost felt that the best solution was for the countries which have the nuclear bombs to fire them off all at once and get it over with. I thought this was a reprint of a newspaper editorial, or of a political speech by some candidate in the 1964 election. Then I noticed it was a quotation -- from Harper's Weekly for October 10, 1857!
What in the world did they have to worry about THEN?
Right afterward, it was time to prepare the Sunday School lesson, a study of the book Deuteronomy. This lesson covered the Reformation under King Josiah, a Hebrew king in the seventh century B. C., at the time when the old book of law which we call Deuteronomy was found beneath the alter, after having been lost so long it had been nearly forgotten. The first sentence of the lesson went this way:
"The second half of the seventh century B. C. was a period of international crisis in the ancient Near East. It was a time when the very foundations of civilization were being shaken. . . There was incipient chaos in every direction. The Assyrian Empire was coming apart at the seams and with it what little order the world had known. The barbarian Cimmerians and Scythians were threatening to destroy civilization with their attacks from the north and east. As the Assyrians lay dying, other nations were jockeying for power. The Babylonians were attempting to assert their control over the Near East, while the Pharaoh was leading his soldiers forth into the world arena in an effort to re-establish the glory that Egypt had known in former times. Everywhere there were wars and rumors of wars as nation rose up against nation . . . Chaos threatening to engulf the world."
That was seven centuries before Christ, and now, nearly 2,700 years later, there is trouble again, or yet, in the Middle East: Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and all those countries. To say nothing of Asia -- Viet Nam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Still, the world has not yet been engulfed by chaos! It's in a mess, to be sure, and in a mess which holds its own with any mess through the ages. But still, there has been progress in many ways and there are good aspects to our civilization.
Nothing did so much to dispel despair as the re-broadcast of the inaugural address of our young martyred President. Those confident, vigorous tones re-lit the flame of hope and determination, when he outlined all the problems ahead of us. "We do not shrink from them, we welcome them," he said. "It will not be done in the first 100 days, nor in the first 1,000 days, nor perhaps in our lifetime on this planet -- but let us begin!"
There was the stab of pain, realizing that his lifetime ended so needlessly with the thousand days, but at the same time there was resurgence of dedication to what he aimed to do. It may be that, in his memory, the impact of his tragic, youthful death will spur us on to heights we had not dreamed of. -- Hope.