The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1926. CHRISTMAS AND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 305, 24 December 1926, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1926. CHRISTMAS AND THE WORLD.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Christmas helps to make a better! world by making better men and women. We have had lately plenty of machinery aiming at world peace and international co-operation, and, perhaps, we have had too many attempts to find short cuts to the betterment of human nature. There is no short cut; there is no mechanical method of attainment. It is only by promoting a spirit of generosity, goodwill, and sympathy that the machinery of leagues and treaties can work smoothly, and it is only by promoting a will towards pood that good can come to mankind. What was called "The Spirit of Locarno" was not the empty dream many critics imagined. It has not proved quite all that its promoters hoped, but it has been far from being the delusion that its detractors prophesied. The regional understandings hoped for in the Balkans and the Baltic provinces have not yet come into effect, mainly because racial and national animosities have been allowed to triumph over the higher instinct of goodwill. These understandings will, however, come in time as the nations concerned begin to realise how much more they have to gain by common action for the common good than they could possibly hope for by strife and quarrel. Some of the most important work of the League of Nations has lain outside the political sphere altogether, and has aimed at uniting the peoples of the world in a common war against ignorance, crime and disease. It

has aimed at promoting that spirit of fellowship and goodwill for which Christmas stands.

International hate is only private hate ' ( writ large. As long as men cherish envy, hatred and malice in their own hearts, so long will the societies of men , which we call nations cherish the same ] feelings towards each other. Christianity 1 came into the world as a "gospel," ( because it brought to men a message entirely new. It is not new to our ears ] because the words, rather than the i reality, have become dulled with time. ' But to a world which had been riven by the Roman Civil War, and had barely done more than hope for fruit from the ] Augustan peace, the message that came ; to the shepherds on the Judaean hills was as a morning star of hope. Greek | scholars tell us that the true translation of this angel carol is "peace on earth among men of goodwill." Men of goodwill alone can know true peace. It remains true that the spirit of generosity, goodwill, kindliness, and willingness to forget and forgive past misunderstandings and mistakes is the only spirit that can bring abiding peace to the world and to the heart. At a time like this it cannot fail to be borne in on us how many are afflicted or distressed in mind, body, or estate. Old Izaak Walton says somewhere that if we would compare our lot with that of those to whom the sight of the meadows, the hearing of the song of birds, and the scent of field and flower have been denied, we should be so thankful to God that our hearts would know nothing but gratitude. The claims of the orphans, the sick and the poor are brought prominently before us at this season. Also to many of us the generosity of'friends, the kindliness of many we scarcely know, and the many comforts that surround us, are brought home to-day. If we would exhibit the true Christmas spirit we should seek to widen the circle of kindliness and wellbeing with which we are surrounded.' The Dean of Bristol said in his Cathedral after his Empire tour that he only wished he could have brought some of the genuine kindness manifested in New Zealand into the stiffer and more formal atmosphere of England. If that cannot be, we may at lep.st make the spirit the Dean noted show forth yet more in our own land. A great deal of kindness is shown in Auckland every Christmas, and probably the amount of organised effort this year is greater than ever before. This is an opportunity for acknowledging the self-sacrifice of many willing workers, but it is also an opportunity of appealing to a still wider public, .