Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

ight."
me."
The Lord's Gracious Gift
By Rose Huston
Bless Jehovah, O my soul, and forget not all His
benefits :
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;
Who healeth all thy diseases ;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;
Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender
mercies ;
Who satisfieth thy desire with good things
So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle.
Bless Jehovah, 0 my soul!
Three thousand years ago this Psalm of praise
came from the heart of one who had been forgiven,
and healed, and redeemed, and crowned, and satis
fied, and his youth renewed. Today, Mr. Takihara
is rejoicing in the same gracious Lord who has be
stowed the same benefits on him.
Since he entered the Hospital less than a year
ago, he has made such remarkable recovery as to
amaze the doctor. On February 10, 1955, the second
operation was performed on his tubercular lung. Af
ter an hour's work, they found the condition much
worse than the x-ray had shown. Another half hour,
and three of the four surgeons present urged the
chief surgeon not to complete the operation as it
was too dangerous. He agreed. But Mr. Takihara
under local anesthetic said, "Go ahead. God is taking
care of my body. I'll be all So they continued.
He was so weakened by loss of blood that a trans
fusion was necessary; but they had none at the
Hospital. A nurse volunteered to give her blood, and
it was transferred directly into his veins, and the
operation completed, taking a little over three hours.
His condition was critical; another transfusion was
necessary. His fever continued very high until Sab
bath afternoon when it began to go down. That was
just the time when we had a special season of pray
er for him before our church service.
His wife came home a few days later as he was
out of danger. The doctor said, "That man has a
remarkable body. It is different from any body I
ever saw. His recovery astonishes
GLIMPSES from page 210
of seven leading New York stations. They found an average
of 6.2 acts of violence an hour on these telecasts. They also
reported that children's television hours, 5-7 p.m., were
"twice as saturated with violence as any other hours." They
teacher"
noted that television is frequently the "first of
young children and stated: "What the effects of a child
seeing five, six, and seven people killed each afternoon might
be in terms of making callous his normal sensitivity to that
kind of human destruction is an unknown
quantity."
All of
the members of the subcommittee are active churchmen and
several of them are Sabbath school teachers.
Parochial Bus Bill
Leaders in the Baptist Church in Missouri have begun
an "all-out" fight against the passage of a bill by the legis
lature which would permit parochial school children to ride
on state-supported buses. Thousands of letters have been
sent and more than 100 long distance calls were made ap
pealing for immediate action opposing the bill.
216
WORLD STRATEGY .
from front page
race by science. It admits no God, aims at trans
forming the world and tolerates no opposition. It has
advanced much faster than any known religion.
In one hundred years the Moslems crossed North
Africa, into Spain and up into southern France be
fore they were halted. Communism has advanced
a-
cross Europe and Asia so fast that for 11 years it
advanced at the rate of 44 square miles a minute
and today dominates the lives of 810 million people.
behind iron and bamboo curtains. We know its strat
egy and its method, so we'll pass it by.
Romanism
A religion that bears the name of Christ but
which has turned out to be an ever increasing per
version of the truth is Romanism. Each century sees
additional dogmas added to "infallible faith." By de
gree now, Roman Christianity is turning to Mariolatry.
The mother of our Saviour has become the
Mother of God. She has done everything but atone
for the sins of a lost world. However, it isn't the
doctrine of this religion that causes the most alarm
today. It is the philosophy and functions of this
Roman church. She believes that she alone has the
truth, hence as far as possible she must protect
all under her control from contamination. Rome has
no concept of the right of the individual to choose
life or death. The "church" is responsible, the
"church"
saves.
The Roman Church believes and demands where
possible that the state and church be united, with
the church supreme, supported by the state. Other.
religions will be tolerated only when totalitarian
control by the church is not possible. Tolerance
increases inversely to her size in a given country.
These practices have invariably produced in lands
which she dominates masses in poverty with a small,
powerful, rich class. The masses remain illiterate.
The Roman Church stays wealthy and politically
dominant. The result today in most lands reveals a
pagan people with as few as 5% of the population, as
in France, attending church. According to a French
premiere, from 65% to 80% of Frenchmen are agnos
tics. A large per cent of French clergy is agnostic. In
Latin America only an average of
20% of the people
are loyal to the church. The fields are ripe for Christ
or Communism. As in Italy, Communism is winning
the battle.
What is Rome's strategy now Apart from the
spiritual efforts made by some, as the American
Mary Knoll Fathers, and a few orders of nuns, ef
forts in Latin America are totally one of "Roman
Catholic Action." Political infiltration to gain con
trol of the government follows and then they impose
a strict concordat. It is easy for them to work
through a heartless dictator such as Franco in
Spain to negotiate such a concordat. The Roman
faith is declared the one uniting force. To leave the
Roman church is equal to being a traitor to the
country. Absolute intolerance becomes the logical
sequence of these teachings of Thomas Aquinas.
The result is continuing persecution with evangelical
church sealed shut in Madrid last month and the
expulsion of a missionary couple. The same teach
ings produced the destruction of 43 evangelical
the death of scores of Protestant Christians.
churches in Colombia, the loss of 32 others and
COVENANTER WITNESS