Logic And Grammar
For the benefit of the serious-minded and sensitive souls, who are in the habit of taking me too seriously about some things I say, this is on the light side and involves no matter of fellowship and should occasion no ill-feeling.
It is strictly a diversion.
Some time ago, brother James D. Bales shook his finger at me in the Gospel Advocate and the Firm Foundation for my faulty logic. The occasion of the reproof was the use I made of brother Brewer's classic about "petrified brains" and "a few stipulated conditions of New Testament teaching." Now, I do not claim to be a finished logician, and do not feel qualified to write a book on the subject. I do recall that a way back yonder I muddled through a course in logic in Baylor University and about all I remember about that is that the text was written by some scholar who called himself Jones. So I have had to get along the best I could with a little logic mixed with some of the "horse sense" brother Brewer thought important enough to italicize. I did not have anything to say about the criticism at the time it appeared, for I had a decided impression that brother Bales was more concerned about defending brother Brewer than he was the logic of the situation anyhow. Knowing brother Brewer as I do, and as brother Bales ought to by now, it occurred to me, and the impression lingers, that considering the attending circumstances, a little "horse sense," which I supposed the reader could furnish would give my premise all the strength they needed for the conclusions I drew. But brother Bales dived at a hole he thought he saw in my logic—and there wasn't any hole. In this case I think his little lecture on logic amounts to pedantry. If you do not know what that means look it up. It is not a cuss word.
But at last our Homer nodded. This time it was grammar, not logic. Now, I took grammar and spelling under A. G. Freed, and have been no great credit to my teacher. However a boy could not take the grammatical and orthographic punishment brother Freed administered regularly and escape unscarred, or unscared. Brother Bales got pretty excited over the prospect of assuming the responsibility for calling brother Gatewood the "Head!" of something or other in Germany, and hurriedly laid the blame on "a secretary" who "wrote it up." He "failed to catch the error" and wants us to all strictly understand that "it was not me." Now, I shudder to think how Freed would have looked at me (not at I) if I had made that blunder when I was a lad, and now a Ph.D., the "Head!" of something in Harding College has gone and done it. Now, Jimmie, listen closely. "Not" is an adverbial particle expressing negation. It is not a preposition which is followed by the objective case. "Me" is in the objective case. You should not say "it is me" or "it is not me," whichever the case may be, but "it is I," or "it is not I." Now, please learn this simple lesson while you are working on your next degree. If you'll watch my logic, I'll give you some out of class lessons on grammar, and we ought to both improve. You ought to rub up a little on your Bible information, too, especially on the subjects of elders and local churches. Even if "the field is the world" it does not mean that one church is supposed to get the whole world by the tail and ask all the other churches to help them get a down hill pull on it. Now if there is any bad spelling, or poor grammar in this essay, lay it off on the printer. As for the logic, brother Bales will be expected to look after that.
—O—
Worldliness In The Church
The church today is faced with many serious, dangerous and chronic problems. The Guardian has been deeply involved in a fight against some of the more obvious of them. But underneath all our problems, and, indeed, perhaps the root of nearly all of them is the biggest, most dangerous, and most difficult enemy the church has ever faced—worldly mindedness in the church. The paralyzing grip of an all-consuming secularism lies beneath nearly every current difficulty of the churches. The attractions of this present world blind men's eyes to the eternal issues; a preoccupation with the affairs of this world, an obsession with "things", an insatiable hunger for earthly pursuits can dim if not completely eclipse the beauty and worthiness of that eternal goal and prize. In all our dealing with threatened apostasy, and with perversions of the New Testament order, let us not lose sight of that insidious enemy which is a constant danger to the spiritual welfare of every Christian. "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." — F.Y.T.