I was prowling about in a collectible store this week with no intention of purchasing anything. An old "Saturday Evening Post" caught my eye. It had Norman Rockwell on the cover. He was talking with a newsboy who sold the Post. He was also doing a portrait of the young man. The copy was dated Summer 1971. That was not real old for a magazine but I wanted to read an article called, "A Visit With Norman Rockwell". The Saturday Evening Post traces it's roots back to Benjamin Franklin and the Pennslvania Gazette first published in 1728. It was renamed The Saturday Evening Post in 1821. It was the most popular weekly magazine in the country. In the early nineteen hundreds a young artist named Rockwell had a drawing featured on the cover. Hundreds more would follow, making Rockwell and The Post the best known combination since pie and ice cream. The sixties hit all magazines hard. Times were changing as TV became the media of choice. Adding to their dilemma the Post was sued and lost in an defamation suit. It cost them $3 million dollars. Curtis Publishing closed the doors to this great old magazine in 1969.
Rising from the ashes The Saturday Evening Post again hit the newsstands. It would now be a quarterly publication. Today it is printed bi-monthly. The copy I had purchased was THE FIRST quarterly one, printed in the Summer of 1971. Is it worth a lot? Certainly not the $12.00 I paid for it. The cover is off and it is showing it's age. I didn't buy it for a collectible.
I have lying here in the office another bit of reading material. It is simply known as "The Bible". It has taken a beating from sceptics and haters around the world, but it keeps coming back. It is an eternal Book with eternal truths. The Author is eternal. The Saturday Evening Post may fold again some day. Newspapers continue to disappear. God's eternal Word will always be here. The pages could all be destroyed, but it is hidden away in the hearts of millions.
