Bisbee daily review., 1919-12-14
Practicability of Kingdom of God

The nub of the question about the future is not whether the kingdom of God is desirable in this world. Few dispute it, and most of them are ad- vocates of the worst elements of hu- manity. With honorable and serious men the question instead is whether the kingdom of God can be brought about. Dreams will do to play with but this is no time for dreaming. Is anything that can be decently de- scribed as the kingdom of God prac- ticable? Granted the world in which we have to live and the forces avail able can such an order be establish ed and maintained?
 That the kingdom of God on earth, in the full, rich sense of the Scrip ture, is practicable, is the growing conviction of multitudes of men. The times challenge such preaching of it and such devotion to it as his tory has never yet known. What are some of the forces that make it prac- ticable?
 First of all, the God and Father of cur Lord Jesus Christ makes it so The talk of many men implies powerless or an indifferent God. Christ knew no such Being. Refer ences in Scripture which treat of the presence of evil in the world are taken to mean the abandonment of the world to the evil one and the surrender of God to the forces or de- struction. If he were a God stand ing aside, regretfully observing the wreck of his world which he made and loves, while he recovers some here and there from the wreck, then the kingdom might be impracticable. But if he is the loving, yearning universal Father of whom Christ consistently spoke, hating evil and All it's ruin because he loves men at all cost, then he can establish and extend his kingdom beyond perad- ,,,nture. James Russell Lowell said that he took great comfort in God. Any man can take great comfort In such q God as Christ revealed to the world. The kingdom is not proceed ing slowly on his account, that Is sure.
 Further. the spiritual forces actu- ally in the world today are adapted to the spread of the kingdom ot God. Our Lord did not speak of his gong away from the sight of men as net loss. but as a great gain, for in his going there was provided way TOT inc coming of the Holy Spirit. He Is here in the world. to take the things of Christ and make them real to men. All the tasks declared to pc long to him are exactly those the world needs to have performed Tn or der to make the kingdom of God practicable. Here is the gospel or Christ. wholly suited to world con ouest and human brotherhood Ill anyone thinks it is meant only to rescue some. but not to change hu- man arelationships from enmity to brotherhood. then it must be 3alo that tremendous potentiality IS Oclhs abandoned, for it is obviously spleu- didlv adapted to the wider task II its believers only give it a chance All the possibilities of the kngloni lie wrapped in the teaching or lne gospel of Christ. They need ohiJ 'o be released
 Rut further still. the need and na ture of humanity make the kingoolh Inf God practicable. When it IS maue' if is 10 be made of just such men as live today. No angels nor lnilaoi- Tants of some other planet are to make it up. so far as this world 'S concerned. It is just such men "ho are needed. men of certain type
 yrart if and steadily seek if at any cost. pushing their way to- ward it through thick and thln.