The Russian dictator, Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili, or Stalin the Man of Steel as he called himself, was born in 1880, of humble parentage, in a village in Georgia. He died on Tuesday, the 5th day of March, 1953, at the age of 73, as the result of a brain hemorrhage. After the death of Lenin 1924 he plotted against Trotsky, his main rival for supreme power in Soviet Russia, and had him banished. His secret police searched out his foes and he sent hundreds to the firing squad. Although his rise to power and as a world figure in politics was remarkable, yet he was an evil genius. He was the mind behind a godless ideology and political system. His death is no loss to the world, in our opinion. It remains to be seen what his successors will be like and how they will act. The people of Russia have need that God would free them, and other smaller nations, from the shackles of Communism and open the doors of Eastern Europe to that freedom which alone comes by the power and influence of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wise Words on Crime by the Home Secretary.
Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, M.P., the Home Secretary, spoke on the crime problem on Saturday, the 28th February last. He was reported to have then said that this problem can only be solved in the end by a return to higher moral standards. Crime, he said, was a symptom of decline in morals and integrity, in our national and family life. There was the need for the help of the Church, other organisations, teachers and parents, etc. He declared that some of the causes of the crime problem were homes lacking parental control, comic newspapers for young people, certain types of films, and the fact that religion had not the sanction it used to have. We were indeed heartened when the report of what the Home Secretary said came to our notice. Speaking, no doubt, as a politician and a member of the present Government, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, in the expression of his views on the above subject, put religious leaders to shame who have recently so unworthily expressed themselves upon such a subject as Sabbath observance. The decline in morals to which Sir David refers must surely include the abandonment of a Scriptural observance of the Lord’s Day. Of course, although men and nations are responsible to God for their sins and transgressions, we learn from the Bible that a return to higher moral standards can only come about by the return of God to us as a nation in mercy and power.