THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 110, 3 February 1941, Page 6

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments —Reflections Intercession. O God, we commend to Thee in love all who suffer from ’the tragedy of our limes. Do Thou comfort those that mourn, and assure them that neither death nor life can separate us from Thy love. Have compassion on the wounded ami the sick; give hope to the homeless, and confidence to the anxious, in all the calls for service to our fellows may the response be given freely and in love, that so may be shed abroad tlie love of Christ for us men and for our salvation. “England is really immensely strong, yet this never emerges from her diplomacy. Today we see the tragic result of a great nation having permitted herself to be mistaken for a weakling.” —M. Oumanski, Soviet Ambassador to U.S.A. “Let us not count too much upon the prospect of a speedy revolution in France. It will come. But its size and strength will depend upou the extent to which we, lonely in Europe, can now demonstrate our certain grasp of victory. The new pact faces the British Government with a situation which will have to be handled with great delicacy, and yet, whenever necessary, with absolute firmness. And upon the British people it imposes the duty of working harder and harder to provide the weapons which will win.”—“Daily Herald,” London. “It is the use of the French Empire that Hitler chiefly wants just now. He wants some of it to give away—a bribe to Spain, presents for Italy, and possibly Indo-Cbina as a present for Japan. But above all he may want Syria, this time for his own use. If, after getting the French mandate transferred to Germany, he could occupy Syria with German troops, he would be in a position at last to co-operate effectively with Italy in a combined assault on Egypt and the Suez Canal. Greece and Syria are both key territories for his Mediterranean plans. It must be hoped that the British Government will earnestly consider whether those plans cannot, for once, be forestalled.” —"Yorkshire Post.”

"The social implications of the Gospel ought not to be capable of omission on Monday if men have heard a truly prophetic voice on Sunday, for the passion of pleading for Christlike living should be in all preaching. We cannot forget that there are means by which the spoken Word reaches men today undreamt of by the preachers of the past. Broadcast sermons, whatever they may lose in the transmission, do take the living power of preaching into cabins in ships and hospitals and ‘huts were poor men lie. ’ This may mean iu time —indeed, some of us feel it must—that in the future preaching should be reserved for those alone who have distinct gifts for it. There is a grain of truth in the Devonshire fishmonger’s retort to his vicar, when taxed with absenting himself from church: ‘You told me you was getting your fish fresh from London, zir, so I’ve bought a wireless set and now I gets my praching fresh; and, what’s more, it be much better.’ ” —The Rev. H. S. Darby, in the “London Quarterly.”

“This truthful tale shows that, although sometimes dazed by the fearsome drumming of Nazi propaganda, our Number 1 Ally, Portugal, remains impervious to its blandishments and enjoys an occasional tilt at minds made torpid by the continued study of ‘Mein Kampf.’ A recent dawn disclosed tive merchant ships slowly moving up the Douro River. A facetious Portuguese immediately telephoned the German Consul at Oporto reporting the arrival of a Nazi convoy. The Consul replied such could not be the case as he had no prior advice. However, when at least three more people left the same message, he—perhaps with hope in his breast —trained binoculars ou to the ships. The good German lenses would not lie and tlie Red Ensign flaunted him at each yardarm. His next informant was curtly advised to consult an oculist. ‘I know they fly the British flag.’ replied the innocent observer, ‘but as your radio insists that the British have been swept from tlie seas, I thought, just in case one crippled warship be still afloat, the colours were camouflage.’ The joke lost its savour as the morning progressed. Ultimately. the baited Nazi telephoned the Prefecture to complain he was being tormented in ii most un-neutral way.”—“Lucio.” in the “Manchester Guardian.”

“We have 3,000,000 boys and girls betwen the ages of fourteen and eighteen, and I doubt whether much more than 1,000,000 have any opportunity for physical training or exercise of any kind. 1 do not want to say that we are lebind other countries. But when I remember the magnificent men and women T saw in Finland last winter, and remember what I have seen them do year by year in the Olympic games, and the amazing system of physical, intellectual and social development of coordinated education for democracy in a dozen different spheres, of which these men and women are the result, then 1 am very certain that if they can do so much in the twenty short years of their existence, we should have made greater progress during the same time. I recall what I have seen in Germany. 1 have never come away from anything with such a sense of boredom, futility am) frustration as when 1 saw a dozen Germans playing compulsory lawn tenuis in Berlin. Tliat is the only time 1 ever left the sports ground with feeling of being definitely saddened by what I had seen. Compulsion of Hint kind definitely demoralizes.”—Mr. Noel Baker. M.P.. in the House of Commons. * ♦ 'I he Flag. Wherever our sails have quivered, Wherever our keels have ploughed, We have carried the flag of freedom, Unfurled it from mast and shroud. It hath weathered the storm of battle. It guardetb the paths of peace And will watch over Kight both day and night, Till the day and the night shall cease. —Alfred Austin.