CHRISTIAN WORLD

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 125, 20 February 1941, Page 9

CHRISTIAN WORLD

Archbishop Of York On Uniting Bond

CHIEF HOPE FOR PEACE

In an introduction to a series of broadcasts from London entitled "News from (he Christian World,’ the Archbishop of York, Dr. Temple, said last night that a Christian campaign was now in progress throughout (lie world, the advance in which on the whole more than counterbalanced the decline in some places. “This campaign is not all victory,” he said, "but what campaign ever is?”

Deferring to the persecution of the Church, he said that persecution did not in reality destroy the Christian Church, but rather acted as a purge, and the Church that survived became the more resolute ami devoted to its cause.

“We hear plenty today about the need to unify the world," he added. "There is, in fact, a unification going on before our eyes and this unification offers the world its only hope of salvation. All the wise men tell us that political machinery will not in itself give us what we want unless there is unity. So it is with Christianity.” The Archbishop of York referred to various Christian conferences held, stating that the greatest conference of them all was the one held at Amsterdam at the end of July, 1939, only a few weeks before war broke out. “Never before were so many nations represented in a single room,” he said, “and in no other name except that of Christianity could such a gathering be assembled."

The world’s vast, company of Christians was far less powerful (ban it could be and ought to be because so few Christians knew what their follow Christians in other lands were doing and suffering. But the company had all the factors of a world-wide community, which unfortunately was less effective than it might bo because the people did not know of all the bits that went into its make-up. It was a simple fact of experience that when real Christians from different countries and different civilizations met as Christians they found the same kind of uniting bond, ami the finding of that bond of unity was the chief hope today for world peace. What the world most needed was that faith among Christians, and the world was trying to banish it.