Fraternity-Testvériség, 1968 (46. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1968-01-01 / 1. szám
ENGLISH SECTION Dr. ZOLTÁN BEKY: FIRST ISSUE - IN OUR NEW PRINTING SHOP Starting with this January, 1968 number of our magazine, the Fraternity will be published from now on in our own printing plant. We are very proud to announce that this issue has already been printed by our Bethlen Freedom Press in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. Our hearts are filled with deepfelt gratitude towards Almighty God that in His gracious Providence He made it possible to have our own Bethlen Freedom Press. It is our belief that this news is good news for all our American Hungarian Reformed people. In the pages of history, the work and service of Hungarian Reformed printing presses is a glorious one. In the century of the Reformation, the reformers could have never succeeded in their mission without the contribution of those printing presses which helped to spread the good news of the Reformation. The Bethlen Freedom Press is already a reality. Our Press is already at work and it will continue to work in the service of our American Hungarian Reformed church life, in the service of our fraternal organization, in the service of God’s kingdom among the Hungarian people everywhere in this world. The realization of this magnificent idea is an achievement which is comparable to the other great achievements of our American Hungarian life, as we proudly speak about the Orphange, the Home for the Aged, the splendid new Kossuth House in Washington, D. C., we should add now another one on the very same level, that of the Bethlen Freedom Press, Ligonier, Pennsylvania. It is ours. The Bethlen Freedom Press belongs to the entire American Hungarian Reformed community and its purpose will he to serve the entire community. As our magazine is being printed in our new printing press it seems to us a worthwhile idea to restate the guide lines of our editorial policy. The Fraternity is intended to be the voice and testimony of our entire membership. It cannot be anything else as the mouthpiece of our Hungarian Reformed Federation of America. Our fraternal organization is Reformed, American, and Hungarian. Promoting the idea of fraternity, the protection and aid of its members and while doing so, it is guided by the very same principles as it has always been. The basic principle is that of our Reformed faith, which claims our entire life and service for the glory of God. Our God-given mission field is among the American Hungarian people primarily. It has two fold aspects: we have to strengthen our American Hungarian life by the continuing growth and progress of our Federation and also we have to do whatever we are able to do for the enslaved people of Hungary and for our Hungarian brethren living scattered everywhere in our world. We pledge ourselves to this very same principles which had always been the guide lines of the life and work of our Hungarian Reformed Federation of America in the true fraternal spirit. Now our magazine, the Fraternity was founded and is published in the service of our membership. We shall continue to seek new and better ways to promote our Federation on the pages of our magazine. We shall increase the number of articles dealing with the various aspects of our fraternal life. We shall give more attention to inform our mmbership about the available policies to give better coverage and protection to our families. It is our aim to ennoble our magazine with more religious and literary pieces in the spirit of our great fraternal organization. At the threshold of the new year as we look hack to the year past we can say with thanksgiving in our hearts that the year of 1967 has been a good year in the life of our Federation. It was a year of great achievements and satisfactory results. Let us be thankful for this to our Lord. We look toward the new year with confidence. We have great expectations of the year 1968. New plans to build up our Federation will be realized in this coming year. It is with firm conviction and good hope as we repeat the Biblical passage which has always been the motto of our Hungarian Reformed Federation of America: “If God is with us, who could be against us?” Q. What is your only comfort, in life and in death? A. That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself hut to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood lias fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. (The Heidelberg Catechism) If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, hut have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain no tiling. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. Chapter 13 — I. Corinthians 10
