THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 60, 4 December 1942, Page 4

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments—Reflections Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.—Oliver Cromwell.

Everbody knows now. that total war means a fight between whole populations. It also means that tbe people must be solidly behind the war effort. If the people do not believe in. the war they cannot be coerced into creating the necessary effort. A perfunctory acquiescence will not do, as we saw in France. There must be determination and a willingness to make sacrifices with enthusiasm, and all else that goes with “high morale.” —J. B. Priestley.

In England one of the first things he did was to start his own “Gallup poll” on the response to a Hitler peace offer: of some 200 people of all kinds and classes, only one person replied that peace would be even worth considering; “all others rejected the idea with varying degrees of vehemence and profanity. The British,” Mr. Fischer adds, “were hard, tough und philosophical.” They had “learned to be proud, of one another. They showed strength and dignity.”—From a review of li. Fischer's “Dawn of Victory.”

“That flower that blooms in beauty in the air of heaven draws its fairness its vigour, from its roots. Nothing living can blossom into fruitage unless through nourishing stalks deep-planted in the common soil. The rose is merely the evidence of the vitality of the root; and.the real source of its beauty, the very blush that it wears upon its tender cheek, comes from those silent sources of life that lie hidden in the chemistry of the soil. Up from that soil, up from the silent bosom of the earth, rise the currents of life and energy. Up from the common soil, up from the quiet heart of the people, rise joyously today streams of hope and determination bound to renew the face of the earth in glory.”—Woodrow Wilson.

No on attended the funeral of the little girl. Nobody knew her name. Her parents had been lost in the raid. It was like that after the Nazi planes had let loose their attack on the. city of Bath. The vicar suggested that “the honoured dead of this world war should be the ‘unknown child’ rather than the ‘unknown soldier.’ ” Many of the exiles are children. Up and down the world one finds them — Polish, Jewish, French, Belgian, Chinese, Dutch. Child ' passengers are rescued from torpedoed ships, and some are not rescued. It has been said that "wartime and post-war planning is a continuous and indivisable process,” I wonder how much the children are being taken into consideration—not as victims of the present war so much as the generation to whom the post-war world will be relegated.—Pearl Strachan in tbe “Christian Science Monitor.”

“Europe is threatened with something much- more terrible than it has known since the'Thirty Yetfrs’ War. The worst - that ever happened to it under Napoleon was nothing in comparison with the treatment Hitler is applying, to its peoples and its institutions. The only, parallel to Hitler is to be found in the speeches that Marlowe put into the mouth, of Tamburlaine, who explained that he had not been made arch-monarch of the world ‘for .deeds of bounty or nobility,’ but to be the ‘scourge of God and the terror'of the world.’ It is clear that if and when the Allies are strong enough to intervene effectively oh the Continent they will receive help of great value from the oppressed peoples. If. on the other band they intervene without the power to make their intervention successful they will expose those peoples to something' like a universal massacre.” —“Manchester Guardian.”

“There is the tendency of modern man to be over-impressed by the machines which he has invented, but machinery and chemicals are helpless in the final contest with the great spirit in man, as tlie.y have proved who so gloriously held the Alcazar. The one. time in the history of the world when men would have been justified in making the statement that war had suddenly become more dangerous to civilization, was the time of the invention of gunpowder, and as gunpowder and all its potentialities have not destroyed European civilization, there are no real grounds for supposing that chemical warfare could do so either, • Again History and Christianity unite to tell us that civilization can be destroyed only through the failure of the spirit of man; a failure which is the real threat to the twentieth century. Against man’s spirit man’s gadgets can never prevail.”—From “The Common Sense of Christianity.” by Dorothy Crisp.-

“China has stood firm after fifty Dunkirks, though She has never had either a sea barrier or a powerful air force behind and beneath whose shelter she could rebuild her strength. She has resisted the nauseating cant of the Japanese ‘co-prospefity’ propaganda with the same resolution as the assault of lhe Japanese soldiery and bombers. She is resisting still in what may seem, on the short view, to be her darkest hour. Though the enemy has occupied her whole coast-line and every port; though, by threat or by force, he has cut her off from all easy communication with the outer world, though he is now engaged on a vast offensive designed to prevent effective help coming even by air. China’s message is still one of defiance and of confidence. The forthcoming months may be even more anxious for them than the-past live years; but they will say again, as Christian said to Apollyon, ‘Rejoice not against me, 0 mine enemy: When I fall, I shall arise.” — “Daily Telegraph,” London.

» * ♦ The Polish Resolve. We will not give away lhe land Whence springs our tribe. Nor bury speech that's ours: We’re lhe Polish nation. Polish folk. A regal Slovinn tribe. The enemy we’ll not allow to crush us. So help us God! So help us God I To lhe last drop of blood within Cur

veins / Wo will defend the Soul, Till crumbles, dust to dusl. The Teuton storm; For us shall every threshold be a fortress. So help us God 1 So help us God!