THE GREAT LIE

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXII, Issue 18, 7 March 1941, Page 3

THE GREAT LIE

I "Christian civilisation is being I confronted by the revolutionary driving force of the Great Lie that there is no Truth," writes Canon Roger Lloyd in the "Quarterly Review." "Hence there can be no principle, no humanity, and ultimately no men and women, but only the collective mind of a mass-produced animal. The real driving force of this 'revolution of destruction' which at this moment we are desperately fighting, thus lies in the realm of ideas, and there no ,less than, on the battlefield, it must be fought. That is why religion is immediately relevant and the Church is in the front line of the battle. The Lie is attempting to oust the Truth, Nihilism to take the place of Christianity, and despair to overcome hope as tiie impetus to j human action. If the first thing to |do is defeat the Nazis in the field, undoubtedly the second is to make sure of our hold upon Truth, for if we cannot hold that, all the other precious things we are fighting for, liberty, security, and the new world, will certainly elude our grasp. Hitler has taught us all— and it is his great contribution to the art- of strategy—that a nation is iirice armed when it attacks on the spiritual as well as on the mili-

tary front, and that the weapons which can pierce moral resistance are cheaper to use, and ten times more devastatingly effective, than shells, bombs, and bullets. If any proof of this is needed, the, melancholy history of the French collapse amply furnishes it, for, as the Prime Minister has recently reminded us, France surrendered long before she had lost anything like as many men as were made casualties in any one of the major engagements of the last war."