The first meeting had started. The entire bay area had become aware that the “pitiful minority” representing Protestant Christianity had joined hands in a united witness for Christ.

Church and city officials had brought words of welcome, and a magnificent choir of 1600 voices had stirred the audience as they sang, “How Great Thou Art,” and later, “The Lord’s Prayer.”

Through all this, a man in a grey flannel suit had watched from a box seat. He seemed only an incidental spectator. When the vast audience joined in hymns of the Church he did not sing.… But now the sermon—a message of man’s need and of God’s love—was over. There was a short invitation, telling of the vital importance of accepting the Christ of Calvary as Saviour and Lord.… First to walk purposefully forward were a husband and wife, the latter carrying a sleeping child. Then by the tens and even by the hundreds came men and women, boys and girls—people of every social strata and many national and racial backgrounds … a sailor holding his girl by the hand … on and on they came. There was little suggestion of outward emotion, only determination; and, on the faces of some, obvious joy and relief. Just as the more than four hundred were turning into the counselling room, the man in the grey flannel suit, accompanied by a distinguished elderly man, head high and purpose in his eyes, walked forward and took his place with the others.

I attended the early meetings of the Billy Graham San Francisco Bay Cities Crusade, not only because an area stirred for Christ is a spiritual stimulus, but also because this witness holds a significance which has no relation to the statistics, reports and news stories in the daily papers. The great significance of these meetings has nothing to do with crowds, with sponsorship, or with a personality. Nor does it center in this demonstration of true ecumenicity in which varying denominations have joined in a united witness for the Lord Jesus Christ, valuable as this experience is proving.

What then is the peculiar importance of what is taking place in San Francisco during these weeks? It is a matter of theological import, and centers in what is either uniting or dividing men straight across Christendom—the content of the message itself.

We live in a day when almost every doctrine of the Christian faith is called in question; in a time when many center their concern far more in ecclesiastical and organizational matters than in the Gospel. For that reason San Francisco is deeply significant because of the particular emphasis of the message. There men are being confronted with basic realities—sin, righteousness and judgment to come. Could anything be more needed in our day? Because this foundation has not been consistently laid in recent years, so many within the Church are floundering today, and the Church herself has lost some of the influence so sorely needed in this age of space and crisis.

The message being preached in San Francisco is nothing new. It has been historically believed and clearly affirmed in the articles of faith of most of the major denominations; it is the Gospel which is still relevant for the needs of the individual and for society as a whole.

By some it is said that this message lacks intellectual respectability and social content. But the Apostle Paul warned of preaching with enticing words of man’s wisdom, affirming that effective preaching must be in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit lest faith be placed in the wisdom of men rather than in the power of God. How can the claims of Christ be presented except before the backdrop of man’s sinfulness and the inevitability of God’s judgment? Only then can he appreciate the love and mercy of God in Christ and the righteousness of Christ imputed to those who believe.

In London a prominent churchman remarked that in his opinion God had raised up Billy Graham for the stressing of one doctrine above all others: the new birth and its inescapable place in the Gospel. In a measure this is true, for he preaches regeneration as one of God’s imperatives, not as an elective, as the gateway through which all must pass if they enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

No one realizes more than Billy Graham that effective evangelism is but the first step in leading men into the fullness of Christian experience. He is first to admit that mass evangelism is but one of many ways for winning men to Christ.

I studied the faces of those who walked forward to make a public decision for Christ in San Francisco. God alone knows what was in their hearts, but I am very sure that for many of this number it was the beginning of a new life with Christ as a vital reality. As the seed of the Gospel was sown some unquestionably fell on stony ground from where it was quickly removed by the emissaries of Satan. Others fell in callous hearts, and some where there is more preoccupation with time than with eternity. But some fell on fallow ground where, under the gentle nurture of the Holy Spirit, it will bring forth an abundant harvest.

When our Lord was on earth only a comparatively few accepted him. But those who did went on to win others.

It is not Billy Graham who is being tested in San Francisco. Nor is it a particular method of presenting Christ. At stake is the relevance of the Gospel to meet the needs of men and women who live on the edge of eternity. Nearly 1,200 churches in the bay area believe in both the power and relevance of the historic message of salvation and have joined in this effort. Many of these will reap rich rewards, for cold Christians are having the fires of their faith and love rekindled while thousands of others are meeting Christ for the first time.

This is a time when the Church should restudy her message. According to the world’s present physical and spiritual birth rate only one person in four will become a Christian. It does not solve the dilemma to preach universalism, or deny the eternal implications of sin, or to ignore the words of our Lord: “… no man cometh to the Father but my me.”

It is urgently important that we return to divinely revealed truth and preach it without apology, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to take that message and use it for the redemption of mankind. It is also vitally important that we who name the name of Christ shall so live that we shall honor his name.

If San Francisco should be used to lead to a new realization of the relevancy of the old Gospel, it will prove of inestimable value to the Church and to the world to which she ministers.

At the Cow Palace, and in homes across America as people view the telecasts, there will be many thousands who will respond. Should a new acceptance of the message eventuate in the churches of our land it will prove an epochal event.

L. NELSON BELL

NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

A crusade that may be destined to shape the pattern of American Protestantism in the latter half of the twentieth century opened in San Francisco’s Cow Palace on Sunday afternoon, April 27, before an overflow crowd of more than 18,000.

With nearly 300,000 advance reservations received a week before opening date, the Billy Graham team reported that statistically San Francisco was surpassing every other campaign, including New York. Participating churches, counsellors, buses … all are breaking records: only New Yorks total budget figure remains unchallenged.

It was not the size of opening throngs that marked off this Billy Graham crusade from previous campaigns, however. What makes San Francisco significant is the definite theological shifting and realignment that is taking place. Discussions in past weeks at student and faculty meetings in the numerous seminaries and Bible schools of the bay area, at pastoral conferences, at denominational and ecumenical gatherings and ministerial breakfasts, have moved inevitably toward the burning issue: Is the San Francisco Bay Cities Crusade authentic Christianity or is it not?

By opening day the opinion had crystallized and the lines were being drawn. The division was not the one so familiar to America of “liberal” and “evangelical.” The great central segment of Protestantism was committed to a mass evangelistic effort as never before. Twelve hundred churches had responded, 300 more than on opening day in New York, and a number of them showing a drive and zeal—not to say hospitality—that astonished the Graham team. Endorsements came in from councils of churches and denominational offices, though not from all. An attitude worthy of note was expressed by the Episcopal Diocese of California in a letter urging its clergy and churches to make their own decisions regarding crusade participation:

“We wish Dr. Graham well, feel a sincere friendship, have a sympathetic attitude toward his Gospel message, and pray God’s richest blessing upon his endeavor.… We urge the prayers of each member of our Communion for him and his forthcoming mission in San Francisco.”

The Presbytery of, San Francisco voted its official approval of the crusade. Many Methodist churches are working enthusiastically and some are conducting all-night prayer meetings with a zeal reminiscent of the days of Wesley. Lutherans also are in this crusade far more strongly than they were in New York City, according to crusade director Walter H. Smyth. American Baptists and Southern Baptists are participating almost to a man. Pentecostals, Mission Covenanters, Salvation Army and independents are working side by side. A surprise endorsement came from Oakland’s Lakeside Unity Temple. The numerous minority group churches—Negro, Spanish-speaking, Oriental, are in most cases entering vigorously into the campaign.

No official invitation from bay area inter-church bodies was ever received by Dr. Graham, but friendly resolutions have been forthcoming from the San Francisco, Oakland and other Councils of Churches. Evangelical associations have avoided the endorsement issue, but have provided much of the effective local leadership of the crusade. Thus the executive committee has brought together such men as the Rev. George Bostrom of San Francisco Mission Covenant and the Rev. Ernest Hastings of Oakland’s Melrose Baptist Church, to work with Dr. Carl Howie of San Francisco Calvary Presbyterian and Dr. Earle Smith of the Bay Cities Baptist Union, the latter two being the co-chairmen.

Concurrently there has been a process of polarization. Denominations and local churches which have been considered on the liberal side have moved even farther left in an effort to avoid contact with Billy Graham. Unitarians, Universalists, Congregationalists, Christians (Disciples) and Friends, with some notable exceptions, are staying away from the Cow Palace. Within the “old line” denominations there is some strong opposition as pastors decry the techniques of mass evangelism in Templetonian fashion.

Similarly those churches which have been considered on the far right have in some cases moved even farther right. Dr. G. Archer Weniger of Foothill Boulevard Baptist Church (Oakland) has provided vigorous leadership for the opposition among the Conservative Baptists. His charges against the crusade have been directed mainly at (1) “extravagance,” (2) “cooperation with modernists” and (3) so-called “referrals to Roman Catholic churches” (consistently denied at Graham headquarters). He has been joined by other fundamentalist groups across the country who have been increasingly disturbed by Dr. Graham’s policy of cooperative evangelism.

No statement has been issued from the Roman Catholic diocesan office, and it is presumed that the Roman church has chosen to ignore the crusade.

Will this be simply a jumbo-sized series of “church meetings?” With San Francisco reporting a Protestant population of only five per cent, this hardly seems likely. On the other hand, it is expected that large numbers of church folk will be experiencing renewal. Says committeeman Hastings, “If Billy Graham chooses to evangelize our church members, it may just prove that he is more perspicacious than we are.”

San Francisco’s gay front, as is well known, conceals a host of serious moral problems. Along Market Street as the crusade opened could be found wide diversity of recreation: the casual who looked upon it as a vast joke, the indifferent, the civic-minded who saw it as an “influence for good,” the fugitive from God who looked upon it as something to be avoided like his conscience, the curious and the spectacle-conscious, the alcoholic who paused between bars to express a wild hope, and the man whose lips were moving in prayer for Graham.

Will the crusade bring real revival? Hard-working pastors, cranking out handbills and arranging bus rides, gathered to pray at their weekly meetings and admitted that the divine fire had not yet fallen; something was missing. Mass evangelism is new to the bay area, and many pastors and people who are willing enough simply don’t know what to do, and are leaning heavily on the team. There are others, however, who are reporting conviction and tears at their cottage prayer meetings, and are calling for more prayer.

Perhaps a typical pastoral attitude was expressed by the Rev. Hugh David Burcham, of the First Presbyterian Church, Oakland: “I have been concerned with the staid aspect of my congregation. I hope this Crusade will bring a new warmth to my people. Even if we get no new additions—and I am confidently expecting that we will—it would be worth our participating if only some of our members can get recharged by the Spirit.”

Covering the crusade for CHRISTIANITY TODAY is Dr. Sherwood E. Wirt, Presbyterian minister and former newspaper correspondent. Dr. Wirt, editor of a book titled Spiritual Awakening, holds a Ph. D. from the University of Edinburgh.

Crusade Results

An estimated 18,000 persons crowded into San Francisco’s Cow Palace for the opening of the Billy Graham crusade, Sunday, April 27.

Another 5,000 persons were turned away at the doors. For these Graham delivered a special open-air message.

Traffic tieups were reported as far as six miles from the auditorium.

The following morning, the evangelist addressed a gathering of 700 bay area ministers.

By Tuesday night, the aggregate attendance figure pushed over the 50,000-mark.

More than a thousand decisions for Christ were counted in the first three days of the crusade.

Policy Shifts

Harvard University gave added recognition to non-Protestants in two distinct departures from tradition last month.

First, the Harvard Divinity School announced the establishment of a professorship in Roman Catholic studies. Subsequently, the university’s Memorial Church was opened for use by other than Christians.

Christopher Dawson, British Catholic historian and author, was named to be the first guest professor of Roman Catholic theological studies in the Divinity School’s 139-year history. The new chair was made possible through a gift from Chauncey Stillman, a 1929 graduate of Harvard. Its purpose is to attract to the school scholars and students who can contribute a wider understanding of the Roman Catholic church.

The university agreed to permit use of the church “on certain occasions” for private ceremonies by non-Christian clergy.

The decision ended a controversy which started when a graduate student charged that marriage of a Jewish couple in the edifice had been refused. At that time, a university spokesman said that the marriage had been performed in the church by a Protestant minister with a rabbi present.

The church was dedicated in 1932 as a memorial to Harvard’s World War I dead. Since then it was the policy to have a Protestant clergyman present for marriages or funerals of non-Christians in the church.

Following the student’s protest, The Harvard Crimson, undergraduate daily, fed the controversy with stories, editorials and letters dealing with the subject.

The student newspaper pointed out that the church was built with funds solicited from persons of all faiths and should be used also for services other than Christian.

The final step came when a group of Harvard faculty members entered the dispute with a petition to Dr. Nathan M. Pusey, Harvard president.

Although the text of the petition was never released, a spokesman for the group said it contained a request for a “tempered revision” of the standing tradition.

The resulting decision statement explained that in view of the “complex society of contemporary Harvard,” private services may be conducted in the edifice by an official of an individual’s own religion providing he is willing to do so notwithstanding the church’s essentially Christian character.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Dr. J. Howard Williams, 63, president of Southwestern Baptist Seminary, in Fort Worth … Dr. John Taylor Tucker, 74, Protestant missionary leader, in Lisbon … Dr. Nyles Huffman, director of Air Mail from God Mission, in a Mexican plane crash … Dr. Peter MacFarlane, 73, rescue mission leader, in St. Paul.

Elections: As president of Religious Newswriters Association, Richard Wager, religion editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer; as vice presidents, Miami Herald’s Adon C. Taft, Chicago Tribune’s Richard Philbrick, Minneapolis Star’s Willmar L. Thorkelson; as secretary, Erik Modean of the National Lutheran Council; as treasurer, Dolores McCahill of the Chicago Sun-Times … The Rev. Morton W. Dorsey as president of the National Holiness Association.

Appointments: Lillian R. Block as managing editor of Religious News Service … Lorin Whitney as organist for the Billy Graham evangelistic team … Dr. J. Glenn Gould as professor of religion at Eastern Nazarene College.

Awards: To Roy B. Covington Jr., religion editor of the Charlotte, North Carolina, Observer, for “excellence in religious news reporting in the secular press,” the Religious Newswriters Association’s James O. Supple Memorial Award … To United Press, the Detroit Free Press, and the Medford, Oregon, Mail Tribune, the National Religious Publicity Council’s “Awards of Merits” for distinguished coverage of local, national and international religious activities.

Statistics: There are nearly 71,000,000 Lutherans in the world, representing 32 per cent of Protestantism, according to the Lutheran World Federation. Lutherans in Europe total 59,000,000; in the United States, 8,400,000.

Rally: To commemorate completion of 18 years of broadcasting, planned for Madison Square Garden June 7 by Jack Wyrtzen, director of “Word of Life.”

Congress: Planned for Madras, by Youth for Christ, Jan. 4–10, 1959.

Groundbreaking: For a $600,000 Presbyterian ecumenical training center at Stony Point, Long Island, held April 19.

Resignation: Dr. William McCarrell, after 45 years as pastor of the Cicero, Illinois, Bible Church.

Jubilee: Dr. Oswald J. Smith celebrates 50 years in the ministry May 18. He has been pastor of Toronto’s Peoples Church for 30 years.

Ecumenism: A Review

“Where have we come?”

The question was addressed to a panel of four ecumenical leaders at the tenth anniversary meeting of the United States Conference for the World Council of Churches.

A long way? Perhaps so, according to Methodist panelist Charles C. Parlin, lay member of the WCC’s Central Committee and chairman of public relations at the council’s 1954 world assembly.

The other members of the panel were Dr. Franklin Carl Fry, Dr. Henry Smith Leiper, and Mrs. Leslie E. Sivain.

“People no longer feel confined to their denomination,” said Parlin. “They have come to feel that through their denomination they are a part of the great ecumenical movement involving all the great Christian communities.”

On the other hand, the three-day meeting at Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, later heard a plea for conversations on Christian unity “at the much advertised and much neglected level of the grass roots.”

The plea was made by Washington Episcopal Bishop Angus Dun, who was not on the earlier panel.

He suggested that laymen should share experiences of top ecclesiastical leaders in interdenominational understanding.

The bishop was chairman of the North American Conference on “The Nature of the Unity We Seek” last year.

As a preliminary step, he asked denominations to work together “to bring small laymen groups” into local conversation with other denominational groups.

Halt Obscenity!

The Military Chaplains Association asked for a halt to the sale of “morally offensive” literature at military bases.

In a resolution passed at the chaplains 33rd annual meeting in New York, they said such literature is “a serious menace to the minds and souls of our military personnel” and urged support of a joint program of armed force chiefs of chaplains to eliminate it.

The “military ministers” from all three major faiths heard addresses by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Republican Representative Walter H. Judd of Minnesota, atomic energy chief Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, and RCA chairman David Sarnoff. Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, minister of National Presbyterian Church and an Army reserve chaplain, also was on the speakers’ platform, along with Francis Cardinal Spellman, Catholic archbishop of New York.

(Colonel) Elson was re-elected president of the association. Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) William Golder was reelected executive secretary and treasurer.

Chain Of Prayer

Some 262 Disciples of Christ churches completed a chain of prayer which began on New Year’s Day.

Most of the congregations throughout the United States, Canada, and Hawaii held prayer services consecutively for 24 hours until Easter.

The final service was held in the chapel of the Disciples Missions Building in Indianapolis when prayers were offered for the activities and personnel of the denomination’s work around the world.

Hot spring weather with intermittent storms greeted commissioners to the 98th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., in Charlotte, North Carolina. Meeting April 24–29 in this stronghold of Presbyterianism, the clergymen and elders, hosted by historic First Church, promptly took their cue from the weather. If the heat and storms generated by the assembly did not match nature’s excesses, there were sufficient pressure areas in view to maintain a sense of expectancy on the floor and in the corridors.

Retiring moderator, Dr. William M. Elliott Jr. of Dallas, wasted no time in declaring the chief emergency area, In his year of travel for the church, he had discovered a “rampant … form of individualism and Congregationalism” which was manifesting itself in repudiation of “constitutional processes” and in “hostility” toward the “courts of our church, particularly her highest court.” The threat was to “ ‘the peace and unity of the church,” ’ (some delegates quickly pointed out that this quotation from their ordination vows was incomplete, the word “purity” having been dropped).

Dr. Elliott’s reference was obviously to the negative reaction of many to the church’s Council on Christian Relations, which has been reaffirming the 1954 General Assembly endorsement of the Supreme Court’s outlawing of segregation in the public schools. For a week the press had been heralding the coming battle on the race issue, but when it came—on the assembly’s last day—it was in terms of an ancient theological debate on the nature of the church, the significance of which was missed by many, who regarded this simply as a smokescreen.

Admittedly, the occasion of such a debate decreed the “loadedness” of both sides of the question. The assembly heard both the majority and the minority report from the Standing Committee on Christian Relations. The former recommended the adoption of the report of the Council on Christian Relations, the major part of which was entitled, “Speaking for God—the Prophetic Role of the Church.” The argument for this role was based upon the traditions of Old Testament prophets and on Christ’s prophetic office as well as on the history of the church, which “is impelled to declare the will of God for every morally and spiritually significant relationship of life.” Thus the council proposed through the General Assembly certain guiding principles for the Christian people of the South. These included repudiation of the branding of any people as inferior; recognition of the Supreme Court decision in question as the law of the land, unless “changed by legal and constitutional methods;” and the necessity for preserving and strengthening the public school system.

The majority report also asked the General Assembly to rule improper the use of Presbyterian church buildings for schools “designed to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling through the maintenance of segregation on the basis of race.” The report deemed unnecessary a provision for moral and material support by the General Assembly of “ministers involved in difficulties in the matter of racial reconciliation.”

There followed the presentation of the minority report by a recently-transplanted Northerner, Dr. John Reed Miller, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, and former president of Knoxville College in Tennessee, a United Presbyterian-related Negro institution.

Exception was taken to the proposed continuity between Old Testament prophets living under a theocratic system of government, and the modern Church. The Westminster Confession was adduced as allowing for no further special revelation from God after the completion of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit works now in the capacity of illumining the “completed Word.” The Church’s “prophetic role” is the declaration of this Word.

Further appeal was made to the Confession as stating, “ ‘Synods and councils are to handle nothing but that which is ecclesiastical; and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs …’ ” The council’s report was thus declared to be out of bounds in calling, in “quasi-authoritative” manner, for such as the strengthening of the public school system, a matter left by the Bible to the individual Christian parent.

With regard to the use of church buildings for schools, the report stated “primary responsibility for the use of church property” to reside in the church session.

The report recalled that the Southern Presbyterian Church originally split from its parent body over a resolution which was “essentially” political. In recommending the dissolution of the Council on Christian Relations, the report disavowed any leanings towards individualism or Congregationalism, but warned against the substitution of “a new authoritarianism of church courts for the authority of individual conscience instructed by the Word of God” and “the assumption of authority by the church over all areas of thought and life.”

Subsequent debate as to acceptance or rejection of the minority report proved interesting even if it did not rise to the level of the highly-regarded reports. Southern eloquence seemed to soar more easily on this topic than on some others. Judge L. F. Hendrick of Central Mississippi Presbytery warned that “intervention in secular affairs would impair the spiritual mission of the church.”

Hungarian-born William Bonis of Austin, Texas, decried the church’s frequent lag behind the community in accomplishing integration. General Joseph B. Fraser of Georgia, speaking against the minority report, said the time had not yet come in the South for integration, but that the problem demanded facing.

Mississippian James Finch was convinced that the majority report “does not represent the ‘grass-roots’ views of the Southern Presbyterian Church.”

In summary, Dr. Miller warned that to break down the confessional safeguards of conscience in social and political matters, would be a “start down the road which leads inevitably, I feel, to the days before the Reformation.”

The assembly then voted, the count revealing the minority report to have been defeated, 288 to 124. The majority report was then accepted, with amendments providing consideration for opposing views and softening slightly proposed support of the U.N.

Thus the crisis was past with little apparent bitterness. Lending personal charm to his position, newly-elected moderator, Philip F. Howerton, Charlotte insurance executive and son of a former moderator, predicted to newsmen that this issue would return again and again to haunt future assemblies.

Another election saw the unanimous calling of Dr. James A. Millard Jr., for the post of stated clerk. If he accepts, he will succeed Dr. E. C. Scott, who retires in 1959 after 22 years in this position.

Occasionally in some of the ceremonies Wistful sounds were heard on possible future union with northern Presbyterians, such being considered an affront by many, since a majority of the presbyteries only recently voted down the proposed merger. One said, “We are not trying to maintain Southern Presbyterianism as such, but we are seeking to preserve historic Presbyterianism.”

Notable on the floor of debate was the historic procedure of repeated appeals to Scripture and to the Westminster Confession of Faith.

There were occasional rumblings in the debate on Christian relations that the seeds of schism were being sown. However, one minister said that he could put up with “political differences” but when the assembly proceeded to tamper with the Confession in the manner it had done on the divorce question, this was a vital issue which could lead to “my seeking another fellowship regardless of the cost.”

In point of fact, the assembly had voted to amend the Confession of Faith and the Book of Church Order to permit remarriage after divorce, with the blessing of the church, when the minister has satisfied himself as to proper penitence for past failure and firm purpose to make the new marriage truly Christian. Debate at times seemed to equate a continuing celibate state with an unforgiven condition.

Present church law allows remarriage after divorce only for the innocent party in cases of adultery and willful desertion. The approved changes now go to the 83 presbyteries for vote, three-fourths of which must give approval for the changes in the Confession to become church law. The chances for this eventuality are not bright, similar tries in the recent past having failed.

Some point to the fact that issues, such as the recent merger-plan, can be decisively passed in the assembly only to be decisively defeated by the presbyteries—demonstrating that the highest court is no longer as representative as originally intended. It is also said that the General Assembly is losing its features as a “deliberative body” and becoming more like a church “convention” with issues being pushed through with greater ease.

Another effort was made to change the Confession through a presbytery overture to remove what were termed “the harsher statements concerning predestination.” The assembly, after vigorous debate, upheld the recommendations of the Committee on Bills and Overtures that the overture be rejected. Chairman of the committee, Dr. J. N. Thomas of Union Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, while not believing the portions questioned to be fully biblical, spoke against tampering further with the Confession and thus depriving it of inner consistency. Rather, he would favor a complete revision of the entire Confession or the drawing up of a new document, maintaining the old as a “guide” and a “monument” of midseventeenth-century theology.

One authority said this to be the first such expression made on floor of the assembly. It was apparently disturbing to some. On the last day of the assembly a commissioner sought passage of a resolution that the church “does continue to stand on the Westminster Confession.”

But it was too late.

Worth Quoting

Heard at last month’s National Association of Evangelicals convention:

—A telegraphed message from President Eisenhower which congratulated NAE for “playing an important role in the life of the nation. Inspired by the precepts of the faith, you bring strength and direction by the daily work of many millions.”

—“Nine million card-carrying Communists are winning the world, while 600 million Christians are losing it.”—Billy Graham.

—“Theologians may well keep one eye on the stars while keeping another eye on the social challenges of immediate living. Heaven and hell do not only exist in outer space, they exist in the present state of human living.”—Dr. Harold J. Ockenga, pastor, Park Strec Church, Boston.

—“Revival is not schismatic. God offers a revival to the churches as they exist.”—J. Edwin Orr, evangelist.

—“All intervention by a secular state in the field of religious education is a two-fold travesty of justice. It is interference with legitimate private enterprise, and it is state intrusion in the field of religion.”—Dr. Mark Fakkema, educational director, National Association of Christian Schools.

Psychologists Meet

Nearly 100 psychologists gathered last month for the fifth annual convention of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies at Calvin Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The group will meet next year at Pine Rest Christian Hospital, an institution for mental patients, also at Grand Rapids, according to Dr. Cornelius Jaarsma, executive secretary.

P. D. V.

Niebuhr Illness

Professor Reinhold Niebuhr was reported ill to the extent that he was forced to cancel engagements.

The report said Niebuhr’s illness was not grave, but that “he is under doctor’s orders to drop all activities for the time being.”

Renewed Effort

The Protestant Council of New York will sponsor a Madison Square Garden evangelistic rally May 15, first anniversary date of the start of Billy Graham’s New York campaign.

Graham will greet the rally by direct wire from San Francisco.

Methodist evangelist Joseph Blinco of England will deliver the main address.

Musical guests scheduled to appear include soloists Ethel Waters, Jerome Hines, Arthur Budney, John King, and Richard Parke. Jab Williams will lead a 2,000-voice choir.

L. N.

New Crime Record

Crime in the United States during 1957 was at an all-time high, according to J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director.

He announced that an estimated 2,796,400 crimes were known to police last year, an increase of 9.1 per cent over the previous record set the year before.

“This is an extremely high increase,” said Hoover, “and merits the careful attention of every individual interested in a better society.”

Last year, a record number of 2,068,677 arrests were made by police, with one out of eight involving juveniles 17 years of age or under. Nearly one-third of all arrests involved young people under 25.

Bold Approach

Considering current missionary shortages, communist gains, and population growth, Park Street Church finds little reason to be satisfied with its $250,000-a-year missionary program, largest of any single congregation in the nation.

To arouse Christians anew to missionary responsibilities, the historic church adjacent to the Boston Common sponsors an annual missionary conference.

The 19th such gathering, April 25 to May 4, featured 60 missions leaders from all over the world in public services, luncheons, forums, and prayer meetings.

Dr. Harold J. Ockenga, pastor, saw the opportunity to stress a threefold need. He said that the most urgent area was in the field of literature, with more printed material required to counteract deluges of communist propaganda. He said that the other big needs were more missionary personnel and access to presently unreachable areas such as lands behind the Iron and Bamboo curtains.

The Park Street Church now supports 121 missionaries. Ten more candidates were to be presented to the conference this year. The church first sent out missionaries in 1819.

Baruch On Law

Statesman Bernard Baruch was appearing as a witness before the Senate Finance Committee. He was asked to suggest what Congress could do to prevent periodic ups and downs in the nation’s economy.

Said Baruch:

“Yes, pass law changing human nature, and make it retroactive to the Garden of Eden.”

Air Time Appeal

National Association of Evangelicals’ Board of Administration carried the gospel broadcasters’ fight against discriminatory air time policies to the Federal Communications Commission.

NAE President Herbert S. Mekeel submitted board-adopted resolutions which call for reports to the FCC by broadcasting stations on time given or sold to religious program sponsors.

The resolutions ask the commission to examine the reports and consummate “appropriate action … embracing … notification to all stations that qualified religious broadcasters must have equal opportunity with all other Americans (as citizens) in purchasing time any hour of the day or night.”

The board charged that (1) certain stations refuse to offer preferred time for religious broadcasting, (2) these stations cover themselves by allocating a small amount of sustaining (free) time for religious broadcasting, and (3) certain stations are reducing their number of Sunday religious programs.

Evidence Of Wrath

An archaeological expedition uncovered evidence last month indicating the destruction of the ancient city of Dothan in the period described in Bible history as the time of an invasion by Assyrian armies.

The expedition headed by Wheaton College Professor Joseph P. Free found shattered house walls and broken pottery among other ruins.

Professor Free and his wife are among 11 Americans who have been digging at the Jordan site, 60 miles from Jerusalem.

A Visitor’S Report

“The congregational singing was the most phenomenal I have ever heard,” said Congressman Brooks Hays after a two-hour service in Moscow’s First Baptist Church.

Representative Hays said 1200 people jammed the pews for Sunday morning worship, another 800 stood and “other hundreds” were turned away.

The Arkansas Democrat flew to Moscow for a four-day stay with Dr. and Mrs. Clarence W. Cranford. Hays is president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Cranford is president of the American Baptist Convention and pastor of Washington’s Calvary Baptist Church, which is affiliated with both the ABC and the SBC.

All spoke to the congregation through an interpreter. Most of the worshippers were older women.

Hays told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing upon his return to Washington that the liquor problem “is so serious in Russia that Mr. Krushchev has taken notice of it himself.” The remark was included in testimony given to endorse a Senate bill which would ban liquor advertising in interstate commerce.

Hays said his trip was financed by the Foreign MisSions Board of the SBC.

First Auca Convert

The first Auca Indian convert, a girl named Dayuma who fled the fierce Ecuador tribe before its warriors killed five American missionaries two years ago, was baptized as a Christian in Wheaton, Illinois, last month.

The girl is a language informant to Rachel Saint, sister of Nate Saint, one of the slain missionaries. Miss Saint has been studying the Auca language with the Wycliffe Bible Translators. She and Dayuma are to return to Ecuador. Both were seen last June on the television program, “This Is Your Life.”

Dayuma was baptized by Dr. V. Raymond Edman, president of Wheaton College and one-time missionary to Ecuador.

Latin America

Tribe Responds

Preaching the Gospel to Paraguay’s Chulupie Indians is a task to test the perseverance of any missionary. It took more than a decade to produce a convert.

Is it worth the effort? The North American Mennonite Brethren Board of Foreign Missions surely thinks so, now that 21 Chulupie men have been baptized into Christian fellowship. More than 2,500 persons attended the baptismal ceremony.

The Mennonite work among the Chulupies was begun about 12 years ago. Not until about a year and a half ago were there definite responses.

There is only one North American missionary couple present, the Rev. and Mrs. J. H. Franz of Coaldale, Alberta. The rest of the missionary staff is made up of workers from churches in Paraguay. They are also ministering to the area’s Lengua Indians. All the workers are Mennonites.

India

Limits Of Witness

Government workers in India must not use their influence to proselytize, warns a decree from New Delhi.

Public employees are free to profess and practice any religion in their private lives, but they must avoid the connection of any such activities with their official positions, the pronouncement said. Disciplinary action was threatened in case of violations.

The decree added, “Cases of government servants taking part in such activities are not likely to occur frequently.” One observer said he was not sure whether this was a compliment or an indictment of Christian witness.

The announcement was not interpreted as necessarily anti-Christian, for it will apply also to Buddhism, which is now experiencing revival. The ruling may be felt most among Hindus, who have often been somewhat careless about intermingling official functions with religious rites.

Australasia

Mormon Temple

The South Pacific’s first Mormon temple was dedicated near Auckland, New Zealand, last month.

David O. McKay, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presided over the dedication of the million-dollar temple and its adjoining college campus which was developed at a cost of six million dollars.

The Latest Method

The Anglican Board of Missions in Australia had to find six missionaries in a hurry or close its New Guinea jungle outposts.

Off went a telegram to every unmarried Anglican clergyman with not less than two or more than 10 years service. The complete text of the telegram: “Will you place your future in the hands of your diocese and bishop offering yourself for service in the Highlands of New Guinea?”

Nineteen clergymen replied. Five said simply, “Yes.”

Pulpit Chronicle

A History of Preaching In Britain and America, by F. R. Webber, Northwestern, Milwaukee, 1952–1957. Three volumes. $7.00 ea.

The author will hardly need an extensive introduction to the clergy of America. His previous books, Studies in the Liturgy, The Small Church, and Church Symbolism are standard in their respective fields and have won him a reputation for sound scholarship combined with a high degree of versatility, always expressed in limpid prose, with Celtic verve and, frequently, in striking phrase.

Mr. Webber, for many years Secretary of the Committee on Church Architecture of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, and editor of The Church Builder, is himself a preacher of wide experience in the pulpit of a large church in Cleveland. And although he is now listed by his denomination as emeritus, he still preaches every Sunday.

These three volumes, containing a total of more than 2000 pages, discuss the history of preaching in the British Isles and in America, much of which has never before been gathered into one place, and little of which, perhaps, has ever been so fascinatingly told.

In the first volume the author tells the story of preaching south of the Tweed from the time of the original Celtic preachers to the present day. His extensive chapters on the trends and movements of the theological scene provide invaluable background for the biographies of the many eminent men of the pulpit whom he presents.

Among the topics of this volume are chapters on the Celtic Church, the English Reformation, the Puritan Age, the Evangelical Awakening and the Tractarian Movement, besides a chapter on preaching in Cornwall.

The second volume treats preaching in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The Covenanters, the Field Preachers, the Marrow Controversy, the Evangelical Awakening and the Disruption of 1843 are the subjects of some of its chapters.

Volume III deals with preaching and preachers in America, from Elder Brewster, who came over on the Mayflower, to Gilbert P. Symons, who died in 1956; and it contains orienting chapters similar to those found in Volumes I and II.

Webber’s work is based for the most part on secondary sources. There are some repetitions which are inevitable, perhaps, when, after the discussion of an era, the biographies of the preachers of that period are related. Some sections have been carelessly proofread and are consequently blemished with more typographical errors than should be found in any work of its distinctive merit.

Mr. Webber is well known for his staunch conservatism. He does not slant his material. And although he presents few biographies of Lutheran preachers—none at all, of course, in Volumes I and II, he is frankly and honestly a protagonist of the theology of Martin Luther. But non-Lutheran Christians interested in the field that he covers will find compensation for that circumstance in his unconcealed and enthusiastic admiration of Calvinistic, Arminian and even, in some instances, Roman Catholic preachers. They will delight in the patent essential ecumenicity of Christian love with which he regards those not of his own denomination who hold the fundamental tenets of Christianity. Webber has knocked about a bit and knows that there are often good things and excellent men on the other side of the denominational fence. And in the present work he has gone to great lengths to search some of them out.

Somehow in this trilogy Webber has managed to combine the factuality and informativeness of a work of reference with an eminent degree of entertaining and—for most preachers, we should guess—fascinating reading. This is the magnum opus of its author, a work which should find an honored place not only on the shelves of the libraries of theological seminaries but also in the studies of Christian pastors, young and old, who are concerned with the effective preaching of the truths of Holy Scripture. For all Christian ministers who are concerned with effective preaching, these three volumes should prove a rewarding study and a powerful stimulus.

E. P. SCHULZE

Apostolic Religion

Paul and Jesus, by Herman Ridderbos, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1957. $3.75.

Each generation needs a fresh statement of basic biblical problems in the light of contemporary criticism. The relationship of Paul’s preaching and teaching to Jesus is one of these problems. J. Gresham Machen served his generation in this important area of New Testament studies in his famous Origin of Paul’s Religion. Now Herman Ridderbos, Professor of New Testament at Kampen Theological Seminary in the Netherlands, has put the present generation in his debt by his recent publication, Jesus and Paul.

Professor Ridderbos is primarily concerned with the origin and character of Paul’s religion, as the subtitle of his book indicates. He finds its origin in Jesus’ Kerygma about himself, and in the proclamation of the early Church. Both are important. To bypass the Kerygma of the early Church is not to do justice “to the position which the person of Jesus as the Christ assumes within Paul’s preaching … and to understand the faith of the early Christian church without accepting the factuality of Jesus’ Messianic self-disclosure and resurrection, brings with it unsolvable historical riddles.”

The primary sources of Paul’s preaching are revelation, the tradition of the Church and the Old Testament. Ridderbos recognizes Hellenistic influences in Paul but rejects with good reason the reconstructions of the religionsgeschichtliche school which would derive Paul’s Kerygma from the pagan world. It is in this regard that Ridderbos enters into vigorous debate with Bultmann and his Christology.

The general character of Paul’s preaching is eschatological. That is, Paul was “the proclaimer of a new time, the great turning point in the history of redemption, the intrusion of a new world aeon.” In this heilsgeschichtliche approach Ridderbos finds the answer to the question of the relationship between Jesus and Paul. Paul’s preaching in essence is “simply the expression of what Jesus referred to when he spoke of the kingdom of heaven being at hand.”

This is a stimulating book and a solid contribution to New Testament theology. Its value, especially to American readers, is further increased by its constant interaction with the best of European scholarship.

WALTER W. WESSEL

Scholarly Comment

Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians, by E. K. Simpson and F. F. Bruce, Eerdmans, 1957. 328 pp., $4.00.

This is the seventh volume now available in the New International Commentary on the New Testament, whose general editor is Prof. Ned B. Stone house. This series has distinguished itself as a standard of scholarly exactness and evangelical orthodoxy among those who take the Bible as the infallible Word of God.

Mr. Simpson writes the comments and notes on Ephesians; Prof. Bruce expounds Colossians. Both scholars maintain the Pauline authorship of these epistles. Technical problems are confined largely to the footnotes. Thus both the scholar and the general reader will find material suited to their needs.

Criticisms of this valuable work are few indeed. The somewhat elegant style of Mr. Simpson’s comments is distracting at times. Difficult words abound. On page 59, for example, are found such words as “mystagogues,” “pharos,” “pyrrhonism,” “purlieux,” and a Latin quotation. It is almost easier to read Paul’s Greek than some portions of Simpson’s English! We feel also that illustrations should have been cited more from the Septuagint rather than Greek and Roman writers. Modern problems of interpretation (such as the dispensational use of Eph. 3:5) are sometimes completely ignored.

However, there can be no doubt that we have in this volume a worthy addition to exegetical literature.

WICK BROOMALL

Pre-Exilic History

Fertile Soil, by Max Vogelstein, American Press, New York, 1957. 137 pp., $3.00.

This is a concise thought-provoking history of the Divided Kingdom from Solomon’s death in 933 B.C. (Vogelstein’s date) to the Babylonian Exile in 586 B.C. Although the subject is highly technical and bristles with problems on every page, the author’s treatment is so fascinating that he lures the lay reader over the pages without losing him in the problems. The expert, on the other hand, will not only find the problems, but will discern with delight that the author has wrestled with them and presented challenging, if not always convincing conclusions. Behind the author’s conclusions, whether one accepts or rejects them, can be detected original research.

Moreover, the college student or the seminarian will also find this volume an eminently suitable text on ancient Israelite history. Its clear outline by topics, its useful maps and its thorough use of original and other sources (there are 16 pages of single spaced notes), and its vigorous treatment will not only illuminate the student, but lend zest to any professor’s class.

Anyone conversant with the general period behind the Book of Kings will already be familiar with Max Vogelstein’s chronological studies dealing with this period. While all chronologists will not agree at all times with the details of his reconstruction of this era, the author’s thorough familiarity with the field does command attention. His chronological survey of the Divided Kingdom in the framework of the contemporary Near Eastern scene at the end of the book will be a valuable feature, enhancing the general brevity and lucidity of treatment.

Vogelstein still holds to the existence of Benhadad I, II and III. The reviewer maintains with W. F. Albright that the Melcarth Stele of Benhadad recovered from the Aleppo region of North Syria in 1941 argues for the identity of the so-called Benhadad I and Benhadad II (see Israel and the Aramaeans of Damascus, James Clarke, London, 1957, pp. 59–61; 141 f.). This evidence, however, has not been accepted by all scholars.

Dr. Vogelstein’s reinterpretation of the contemporary Assyrian records is stimulating, as well as his observations on the Zakir Stele and the Mesha Stone. The book simplifies an exceedingly complex period. The author is to be congratulated for his ability to say much in few words.

MERRILL F. UNGER

Handbook Of Evidences

Archaeology and the Old Testament, by J. A. Thompson, Eerdmans, 1957. $1.50.

It will be difficult to find anywhere else, in such brief compass, so much valuable material on the foremost subject in biblical studies. The author, who is a professor in the Baptist Theological College of New South Wales, Australia, is not a career archaeologist. Yet he has provided a collection of the most pertinent evidence from competent sources. He has also avoided extremes of interpretation of the facts.

The date of the Exodus from Egypt has long been a topic of discussion. Thompson presents a series of convincing arguments both from the Bible and from archaeology for a date about 1300 B.C. The encouraging feature is that he does it, not by discounting the statements of the Bible, but by seeking to show their consistency.

At certain points the author has shown how archaeology clears away some obscurities in the King James Version, indicating also that the Bible is an accurate source of ancient geography. For example, the King James Version, in 1 Kings 10:28, tells us that Solomon “had horses brought out of Egypt and linen yarn” (Hebrew QWH). Recent study has shown that QWH or Que, was a district in Asia Minor from which horses were procured (p. 84). According to the King James Version of 2 Kings 7:6, the Syrians fled from Israel because they thought they heard the sound of Hittite and Egyptian forces. It is now known that there was a land of Musur north of Palestine, and a proper reading would be “Hittite” and “Musurite.” The misunderstanding in the Authorized Version was natural enough, since the Hebrew root for Egypt was MSR. The combination of Musurites with nearby Hittites is undoubtedly more accurate, however (p. 101).

Joseph is described on p. 37 as “vizier” of Egypt. Some doubt has been cast upon this view by recent studies. Joseph may very well have been second only to Pharaoh in his ministry as supervisor of granaries.

On the whole, this is an excellent handbook for the student of the Bible, whether pastor or layman.

DAVID W. KERR

Anthology Of Mystics

Late Medieval Mysticism, edited by Ray C. Petty, Westminster Press, 1957. 424 pp., $5.00.

This thirteenth volume of the Library of Christian Classics consists of selections, none newly translated, from Bernard, the Victorines, Francis, Bonaventura, Lull, Eckhart, Rolle, Suso, Catherine of Siena, van Ruysbroeck, Theologia Germanica, Nicolas of Cusa, and Catherine of Genoa.

The editor notes that asceticism is the normal source and accompaniment of mysticism. Thus most of the mystics were monks.

In spite of this unhealthy and unscriptural mode of life, mystics sometimes write intelligibly and their thoughts are profitable, e.g. Bernard On the Love of God (p. 54). The selection from Ramon Lull is not so much mystical as it is a fanciful though serious plea for the study of foreign languages in preparation for missionary work.

Francis, on the other hand, shows his Mariolatry; and the Victorines are intolerably allegorical. So is Eckhart, who wrote, “Why did Christ say, Martha, Martha, naming her twice? Isidor says there is no doubt that prior to the time when God was man he never called anyone by name lest any should be lost whom he did not name and about whom it was doubtful. Christ’s calling I take it, means his eternal knowing.… Why did he name Martha twice? He meant that every good thing, temporal and eternal, destined for creature, was Martha’s. The first ‘Martha’ stood for perfection in temporal works; the second one for her eternal weal” (pp. 194–195).

The selections are good examples of the travesty of Christianity effected by monasticism, mysticism, and Romanism. The volume has carefully prepared indexes.

GORDON CLARK

Is there A conflict between Christianity and science? This is a question which has engaged the attention of scholars, both Christian and secular, ever since the time of the Copernican revolution, and the debate continues today with, if anything, renewed vigor. Critics of Christianity show no signs of forgetting that Galileo was condemned by an authoritarian church for his advocacy of the Copernican system—though they do not so readily remember that many of the church leaders of that day were convinced in their own minds that Galileo was right, but felt powerless to oppose the official machine of the Roman Inquisition. A most interesting book by Giorgio de Santillana on the Trial of Galileo has recently been published (London, 1958) and gives a full and very fair account of the whole sorry business. Little wonder that Galileo, who always protested that he was a loyal and dutiful son of the church (what else could he do?), was filled with frustration as he sought vainly for recognition and the acceptance of views the truth of which he was denied any opportunity of demonstrating to his accusers. Little wonder that he should have complained that “of all hatreds there is none greater than that of ignorance against knowledge.” His chagrin was not diminished by the realization that the Commissary General of the inquisitorial court which tried him was persuaded of the rightness of the accused man’s views, yet was ineluctably caught up in the authoritarian machinery of his high office.

The scientific doctrine of Galileo has long since been embraced by church as well as state and the Ptolemaic world-view disowned. Nobody now believes that the earth is the fixed central point of our solar system. But it does not follow from this that science is always right; indeed, it follows that science may be persistently wrong, as was the case for centuries during which the Ptolemaic interpretation continued unchallenged (and Galileo had scientific as well as theological opponents!), and as was the case, to take another example, with beliefs concerning spontaneous generation until Louis Pasteur demonstrated in the middle of the last century that all life comes from previous life of the same kind—a conclusion which has been amply confirmed by the development of the science of genetics. In every age there is a disposition to regard “modern science” as unassailable and authoritative, as though it has already spoken a final word. Christians, therefore, must treat the oracular pronouncements of science with caution and discernment; otherwise they may find themselves sharing an embarrassment similar to that of Emil Brunner who, having accepted the view that “modern science” precluded the possibility of there being, as Scripture foretells, a catastrophic end to our world, now finds it necessary to retract that opinion.

Far more radical is the approach of Rudolf Bultmann whose “demythologization” of Scripture involves the ruthless eradication of every supernatural element from the Christian faith, on the ground that “modern science” has shown our world to be a closed system which will not brook intervention “from without,” such, for example, as that implied by the doctrines (when literally understood) of the incarnation, resurrection, ascension, and ultimate return of Christ (see in particular the volume Kerygma and Myth, London, 1953, and also my Tyndale Lecture Scripture and Myth, London, 1956). This represents a complete capitulation to the supposed authority of “modern science” which, however, is scarcely modern any more; for Bultmann, as John Macquarrie says, “is still obsessed with the pseudoscientific view of a closed universe that was popular half a century ago” (An Existentialist Theology, London, 1955, p. 168).

In his book Modern Science and Christian Beliefs (New York, 1955) A. F. Smethirst (whose untimely death a few months ago removed a familiar figure from the convocation of Canterbury) maintained that “the antithesis between religious knowledge on the one hand and scientific knowledge on the other is … a completely false one,” since “religion by its very character must be concerned with the whole of reality, including the entire natural world and every type of material or spiritual existence” (pp. 71 f.). E. L. Mascall, another recent contributor to the contemporary debate, points out that “when people declare themselves unable to accept the Christian religion because of the outlook of science, the science involved very frequently turns out to be the now largely abandoned science of the nineteenth century” (Christian Theology and Natural Science, London, 1956, p. 32).

On the assumption that “the spirit of mutual respect for both science and Scripture preserves us from any charge of being anti-scientific or blindly dogmatic or religiously bigoted,” Bernard Ramm declares that “we must be as ready to hear the voice of science as we are of Scripture on common matters” (The Christian View of Science and Scripture, Grand Rapids, 1954, p. 32). It is somewhat astonishing to find a Christian apologist contending that “if the theologian and the scientist had been careful to stick to their respective duties, and carefully to learn the other side when they spoke of it there would have been no disharmony between them save that of the non-Christian heart in rebellion against God” (p. 58)—as though the non-Christian heart in rebellion against God were not the radical cause of all conflict between science and theology (and as though it were the scientist who always had the rebellious heart)! This, in fact, is the really crucial issue, for it is the revolt of the proud human mind against God, the Sovereign Creator of the universe, whose mind conceived the whole design of the order of the natural realm and is therefore the sole ground of all true knowledge and science, that corrupts unregenerate man’s understanding of things in their ultimate, that is, their most important, significance. That man may know certain things in connection with their proximate significance none will deny, but that he may know anything in its ultimate significance is impossible so long as he refuses to glorify God as God. And that is the nemesis which dogs all the science and all the philosophy of the unredeemed intellect.

Whether our contemporary would-be reconcilers of science and theology have succeeded in their object is certainly open to question. One suspects that in their acceptance of evolutionism, of the possibility of the formation of life from lifeless matter, and of the doctrine of progress by means of fortuitous and unpredictable mutations in the genetic structure, they are, after all, marrying the spirit of this age and will find themselves widowed in the next.