Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

“The American nation will soon be in a state of nervous collapse..." So said the 1969 British writer Tom Stacey in the London Daily Telegraph. If we are on the verge of a nervous collapse, it is because we have added to our lives a multiplicity of activities without keeping pace morally and spiritually. We cannot be ever achieving new powers, enlargin...

There is one thing that you can rely on—rumors aren’t reliable. People mix stories, tell half-truths, and misunderstand what they hear. The results? A story distorted beyond recognition. Let me illustrate. A number of people in our church once attended a state softball tournament in Wichita Falls. One morning two tables of sponsors were having breakfast i...

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...

I once read an address delivered by Dr. Douglas Freeman at the dedication of the library at the University of Florida. Dr. Freeman was for many years the editor of the Richmond News Leader and the author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Robert E. Lee. At the close of his address he made a rather startling observation that the most important thing ab...

Here is a typical day for any pastor in America today. Received a telephone call from a young lady who recently married outside of her faith. She is now having trouble from both sides of the family.  Worked on a funeral sermon for a dear friend who passed away. Visited with a young couple. They are new here in town. She is lonely. Her parents live in a distant...

Jesse Jackson said some time ago that we sometimes allow our children to “eat junk and to watch junk and listen to junk and to play with junk and to talk junk, and then we wonder why they grow up to be social junkies.” To that I would add that we sometimes allow ourselves as well as our children to think junk. If we are continually focusing on junk in ever...

Henry David Thoreau once sat at Walden Pond watching a lineman string wires down the railroad. “What are you doing?” he inquired. The lineman replied, “We are building a telegraph system so the people of Maine can talk to the people of Texas.” Thoreau commented, “What if the people of Maine have nothing to say to the people in Texas or Te...

A Marxist and a Christian were debating. As they presented their philosophies, a shabbily dressed man passed by. The Marxist said, “Communism can put a new suit on that man.” Then the Christian replied, “Yes, but Christ can put a new man in that suit.”  No one else can make people new like Jesus Christ can. How so? Jesus gives us a new m...

On the surface the argument is plausible: let liquor become part of a child’s life when he is young and he will drink in moderation. Unfortunately it does not seem to work that way. It appears strange that while many countries are cracking down on the abuses of alcohol, we Americans are calling for more leniency. Alcoholism is one of the great social problems t...