Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Every day we read about another step in the gradual disintegration of the religious and moral foundation of our nation. My concern is not for God. He can stand it. But I’m not sure our nation can stand it. There are two basic truths about morals and our nation that we seem to have forgotten. The first is that an immoral nation cannot long stand. Former President...

One of the joys of today is that there is so much good fighting going on. By a good fight I mean an honest struggle between ideas and convictions. Yet there are so few who will fight. We are afflicted with moral laryngitis. We are like the lad who was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He replied, “Alive.” That is what we want mo...

Let me point to just one area where we need some people to “yell” a little. That is in the field of entertainment. By the time a child enters the first grade, he has spent more hours in front of a TV set than he will spend in a college classroom, and much of what he sees is filth. Can anyone deny that movies, TV, and books are dirtier than ever? But we don...

One of the most disturbing things in our day is the apparent breakdown of law and authority. There is an awful lot of foolish talk by otherwise intelligent people who condone it. Some of them try to condone it under the guise of American tradition by saying, “Our nation was born out of violence and will progress by violence.” How foolish can you get? ...

We must learn to respect those whose views differ with ours and those who want to openly demonstrate against what they feel is evil and injustice. Such dissent has great value in democracy and we need understanding of the other man’s view. Our greatest danger is extremes in either direction. Our problem is illustrated in the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhau...

Ethel Waters, the beloved America gospel singer, was converted at the age of 12. Then due to some unfortunate circumstances in her life she did not stay in the church or close to the Lord for many years. She was 61 years old before she came back to him. She renewed her relationship to the Lord at a Billy Graham crusade in 1957. She said concerning that experience, &ld...

General David M. Shoup, USMC, said, “If in this troubled world we can produce enough properly guided men, we won’t need guided missiles.” There is no greater need today than for more properly guided people. And the task of producing properly guided people belongs to the home. Our homes are not merely to be refuges from the storms and vicissitud...

Christian author Josh McDowell, who spoke on campuses across America for decades, was once asked in a magazine interview to characterize the atmosphere on college campuses in the 20th century. The two words he used to describe it were “aggressive apathy.” This is in marked contrast to the 1960s. The college campus was then characterized by activism. C...

The New York City Youth Board once released a report that attracted a good deal of attention. The board had sent some highly experienced social workers and psychologists into the homes of 500 six-year-old boys. After studying the home environment, the researchers made predictions about the future of each of the boys. For the children from homes with a notable lack of...