There's Nothing Like Facing The Facts

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 31, 6 February 1943, Page 4

There's Nothing Like Facing The Facts

By Rev. C. W. Chandler

MAN is a killing animal. He spends a great deal of his money, and a considerable part of his time in justifiable or unjustifiable homicide. He will have to pass through several more evolutionary cycles before he can hope for much improvement in his character and disposition. There's nothing like facing the facts. I have been dodging them for the past twenty-five years, although not intentionally.

I fancied I could rest upon a ledge of rock beside the stream, while my fellow men were being swirled along by the current of events. The day before yesterday (1943 years ago to be precise) there came into the world One who ultimately died in order to show us a better way. Although the greatest, He was by no means the first whom God sent into the world to redeem it. Of the few that listened, most of them forsook Him and fled, and that's what we've been doing ever since. We are beginning to see the light, that is true, but there are so many who haven't yet seen the faintest glimmer of it, that we have got to wait for them to catch up, because we cannot trust them until they do. Hence it comes about that we are not happy in our homicidal ways. We are, in a measure, sinning against the Holy Ghost, largely because the paleolithic and neolithic man is still so strong in us, that we find ourselves obeying our instincts in spite of our reason, for our reasoning faculty is, as yet, so poorly developed. Sword and Trowel We have seen the light, and are slowly climbing towards it, but while there remains in the world a species less than human, in possession of power with which even men are not fit to be trusted, we must still labour with a trowel in one hand, and a sword in the other, like the men who assisted Nehemiah to build again the walls of Jerusalem. There are about us far too many Sanballats (hinderers of . the work) for us to be doing anything else. I don't feel that I am a better or happier man since I have become more of a realist, but I do believe I have become a saner one. Many things have to be accepted that *n the light of an enlightened Christian conscience cannot be justified, and war is one of them. So are cancer and tuberculosis, and crime and poverty and prostitution. While nlacing one foot on a higher rung of "the ladder, the other foot must be securely resting on the rung below. So it is with human progress. For years I've had my foot off the lower rung, and its a wonder I haven't metaphorically broken my neck long ago. There are sub-human types still living in the world, and one has but to. read Lin Yutang's "Leaf in the Storm" to be convinced of the fact, and I cannot believe that Yutang is lying, or that as a Chinese he is just venting his hatred of the Japanese in pages of imaginative filth. We cannot be safe to pursue a more peaceful way until such a species is either converted or exterminated, the former method being the only one that a Christian could entertain. Importance of Missions Never before has the need of foreign missions been so apparent. "Go ye into all the world" was the greatest and most important single command that Jesus ever uttered. We cannot be saved in isolation. So closely bound together are all the nations of the world to-day, by com-

merce, communication and transport, that only our comfort, but also our safety, is bound up with what the fellow next door is doing. In point of fact I am nearer to Berlin and Tokyo than I am to Ponsonby or Mount Eden when "tuned in" to those foreign capitals, and nothing less than the establishment of a world commonwealth can bring us any assurance of peace. The establishment of such a commonwealth must become the united and immediate objective of all the Christian churches in the world, as well as of the peoples of all other faiths equally bent upon reaching that lofty ideal. The problem is essentially spiritual, but carnal weapons will continue to be used until Christians become Christian, for until they do there is small chance of the "lesser breeds" ever being won for Christ. I have little patience with the man who thinks he is "saved," while the rest of the world is in travail. Being "saved," so far as I am concerned, involves not only the acceptance of a Creed, but it also involves a divine discontent with things as they are, and a determination to work for the establishment of this world commonwealth, based upon the welfare of all, and the exploitation of none. From the realisation of that grand objective, "how many blood-filled trenches still divide us?"