WAR ON SELFISHNESS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 303, 20 September 1939, Page 11

WAR ON SELFISHNESS

Moral Rearmament Assembly Opens

PURPOSE OUTLINED An assembly of the Oxford Group opened last night in the Royal Oak Hotel, Wellington, when visitors from all parts of New Zealand met for the first of a series of meetings, which is to continue up to next Monday. There were about 100 people present. _ The purpose of the assembly is described as the study of the implications and the planning of the application of moral and spiritual rearmament to New Zealand and her problems, personal and national. The keynote of the opening meeting was, “A War on Selfishness.” “The outbreak of war was made the need for moral rearmament all the more obvious,” said Mr. lan Macphail (Wellington), who led the meeting. The inevitable result of war was that it generated fear and hatred, arousing passions that demoralized men and nations, he continued. The best method of defence was attack. The urgent need was to mobilize ail our moral and spiritual resources to wage spiritual warfare on selfishness —the root cause of war in every nation. The Oxford Group is not a pacifist movement, Mr. Macphail emphasized. "We have never had real peace because we have never earned it. If we want peace we must pay for it. The price is facing with God where we and our nations have been wrong and bow we and our nation, as God directs, can put right the wrong. “For Christians this must be a time of repentance, personal and national. The fruit of true repentance is restoration. Imagine what it would mean in international affairs if any one nation made an honest attempt under God to put right the wrongs of the past.. “Moral rearmament means beginning with yourself and your own nation. Everybody wants to see the other fellow changed. Every nation wants to see the other nation changed. But everybody is waiting for the other fellow and the other nation to begin.” Moral rearmament had been born out of crisis, said Miss Enid Middleton, Wellington, who dest-ribed the meeting in the East End of London where Dr. Frank Buckman, founder of the Oxford ford Group, had first publicly used that phrase. Miss Middleton worked in the East End' of London for eight months in connexion with the movement.

Mr? W. Coffey, an architect, from Melbourne, who had come to Wellington for the assembly, said that on the other side of the Tasman M.R.A. meant “Must Revolutionize Australia.” “Absolute honesty and unselfishness are the only answers to industrial problems,” said Mr. M. Lennon, a carpenter, Wellington. “M.R.A. for me has>meant committing' my life to bring this new spirit into -industry.” Two lousiness men from Dunedin, Mr. W. D. G. Hartley and Mr. R. McKenzie, spoke on the value of moral rearmament in .business. “The untried solution for today’s problems is repentance and restitution,” said Mr. Hartley, “and for me the first step was to see this for myself.” Other speakers were Mrs. Bull, Canada, now resident in Auckland, Mr. Greville Warren, Hawke’s Bay, and Mr. H. Tonks, Wellington. Other speakers covered the meaning and value of moral rearmament in the home, in business and commerce, and in national affairs.