A Happy New Year! With what cheer those familiar words are filled. They tell of new hopes, new possibilities, new energies, new opportunities, new joys. Surely this eternal upspringing of hope manifests an instinct for progress, and has its roots in that which neither deceives nor disappoints, —in the source and Soul of all reality. With strange inconsistency, however, mortals often seem unwilling to acknowledge a faith in human possibilities for greatness. The reason for this is not far to seek, —good has ever seemed to elude the human grasp, while evil usually comes without bidding. With the close of the year the business man must needs review his past transactions, —take his soundings, so to speak, that he may know what can be undertaken in the future. The humanitarian has a broader outlook. He reviews the gains and losses of mankind, and from the spirit of the hour ventures to predict the possibilities for progress in the oncoming time.
To-day many thinkers are agreed that the most hopeful sign of the times is the growing disposition to appeal to the teaching of Christ Jesus as the only sure basis for universal advancement. This decade will be known in the future as a period of mental reconstruction, characterized by the gradual giving up of once-cherished theories relative to the belief in matter as substance, by many important concessions on the part of some of the foremost advocates of the material theory of evolution, and by a consequent strengthening of faith in the authority and helpfulness of the Scriptures.
At one of the meetings of the Bible League Convention, recently held in Boston, the following interesting statement was made,—
