Reformed Presbyterian Minutes of Synod 1961 - Rparchives.org

REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 17
will be compelled to advance on that issue.
Russia was freed from serfdom by a czars's decree in 1861,
while America made a similar move by four years of civil war. But
Russia still had the secret police and knew exile to the mines of
Siberia long before the communists took over. We need to remember
this when we think of how little Russia's common people have
have gained under their new dictators. But bad as things are, they
have made marvelous industrial gains, and there is discontent at
almost everything being devoted to military strengthening.
The wickedness of the communist dictators, again and again
has demonstrated that moves thought to be victories have injured
their cause in the eyes of the world. The Communist Chinese attack
on Tibet has done more to turn Asiatics from neutralism than
all American efforts, just as the Russian suppression in Hungary
turned many from communism in othet European countries.
President Eisenhower asked for two billion dollars for military
aid to other nations and more than two billion for economic
progress. This is not called missionary work; but it is influencing
other nations. A missionary speaker at Geneva this spring told how
the Russians were spending billions for printed matter for the depressed
nations. He was leading in a movement for Christian
printed matter also. The ability to read has been wonderfully increased.
The American Bible Society has at least parts of the
Bible in 1100 dialects; and many groups are hastening to spread the
Word of God to meet the anti-religious attack. Not only printing
but the radio and television are bringing the whole world to knpw
more about all the rest of the world. Is not God in all this, awakening
even the most careless Christians to know that they must
work or die
Any day of national thanksgiving in the United States has already
many things to celebrate, and the next six months will cercertainly
show some more. Humanitarianism is being widely active
in United Funds, in the advance of care for the aged, the sick,
and the unemployed.
Though there was an increase in prisoners in federal and
state prisons, its proportion to the total population dropped slightly.
The 610,000 divorces in 1946, just after the War's end,'dropped
by 1949 to 397,000; and that was still the report for 1959. Divorces
are double in proportion to population to what they were thirty
years ago; but at present the number seems stationary. It is confusing
to many to say that there are one-fourth as many divorces
as marriages. That is true only in the report of changes in one
year, but it is not true concerning the thirty-seven and a half million
existing marriages, of which the divorces of the year are only
slightly over one percent. The common American has cause to be
thankful when 1958 showed 68,299,408 automobiles, trucks and