THE NEW YEAR

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 30, 5 February 1935, Page 9

THE NEW YEAR

NEED OF THE WORLD A RECOVERY OF THE SOUL CONFUSED TIMES The Archbishop of Canterbury broadcast a New Year address from Canterbury Cathedx-al and declared that what the whole world needed was a recovery of soul (reports "The Times"j). He said:— Within twenty-eight hours this old year will be dead and a new year will be born. It -is good to meet each year as it comes,with hope. On Tuesday this perennial hope will not be wistful only, it will be expectant, even confident. There come days in the late winter when, though the trees are still bare, we feel.a new breath in. the air and we say "the spring is coming." So when we now survey the world and our own land -.within it we know indeed that the . winter of our discontents and disappoint- j ments is not past, but we feel that recovery is coming. It is to be discerned; not so much in statistics of trade or employment as in a tone of mind, an atmosphere of spirit. Yes, recovery is in. the'"air, and for this we may well be thankful. ■ But, as with you this evening I look backward on the old year and forward to the new, I see the need of another kind; of recovery. Let me call it a recovery of soul. I have not time to analyse what we mean by the soul;1 indeed, we know: well enough what we mean. Suffice it to describe the soul as. that inner region of our life where dwell our deepest : intuitions, desires, fears, hopes, beliefs, and motives—so deep that often they are below the level of our active consciousness. Yet it is a region, far more.' important, "tjian the ' outward regions :of 'speech and action.; For there our true: .selves are' being formed. There conspience speaks. There we become aware of' God.

,Can: we doubt that-the worth: of all human, life is'1 determined by the strength or weakness of the soul? ..A'.1 great .poet has said that by the soul only : is a nation great and free; arid | his wpirdsarei as true of individual men dndAvomen as they are of nations. I'am speaking in the great Cathedra] of Canterbury. As I speak I feel the presence and power of a mighty Soul abiding cthrpugh $11 the changes •of the ! centuries, filling the great spaces, and speaking in .silence of things unseen and eternal. I-7 know that there is herea great Reality whose loss would makei pur ; ,coriinibri life poor and mean*: and trivial, whose possession can make it rich arid noble and strong. A RIGHT BALANCE NEEDED. Yet,'are there riot many' facts and forces in our modern life which are imperilling the soul? The. mere men--tion of .some of them will show how real the' peril is; There is first, and perhaps 'foremost, the ever-increasing speed of physical movement. "Faster and faster" seems to be alrhost a motto; of existence; arid haste arid hurry irifeet us with heedlessness of soul. There is the iricessan t pressure of distractions which hustle the mind from one sensation to another—the cinema pictures r exciting and confusing the imagination, the popular Press with its arresting headlines, the endless flood, of books. Even this marvel of science which " enables me now to speak to. ;multitudes/far away, with all its power for" good, -brings its own' danger—the distraction of the mind when impressions follow each other so swiftly that scarcely "one of them can stay. Thus we are hurried along over the surface of life: and in the jostle of sensations wehave no time to stop and think. The soul is unheeded, and God is crowded out.

. Do not let me be misunderstood. All, or almost all, the things of which I have been speaking are in themselves good, or capable of good. They increase not only the pleasures, but also the resources and opportunities of life. But they ' have outstripped the capacity of/ man's character to adjust itself toi them and to control them- We must restore a right bal-; ance. The most urgent" need of modern life is to make time to recover. the soul, time to recollect and 'bring into action 'all the deeper' emor tiohsand convictions which are latent within the soul—-time, in a word, to be still arid know God. We must call in the spiritual world to' redress the balance of the material world. For1 never was the warning-of certain old deep and searching words more needed —"What shall it profit a man if he ;shall gain the whole world and lose his own" soul? or what shall a "man give'in exchange for his soul?" . TWO PRESSING PROBLEMS. Must we not go further and say that we cannot really gain the world, at least the better world of our desires, unless the soul is saved? Consider two of the pressing problems on whose solution the gaining of that better world largely depends. They are, let us say, the establishment of peace and the juster arid wider distribution of the things which man.needs and which exist in • j ever-increasing abundance. Everyone admits—indeed, it is the merest commonplace—that the accomplishment of these ends depends upon the spirit which men bring to bear upon them—the spirit in the one case of good will among nations, and the spirit in the other which prompts men arid nations to seek the good of their neighbour as well as their own. If the spirit is absent or weak, conferences fail and plans-miscarry. But its strength or weakness must in the last resort depend upon what men realJy think about the world into which the soul leads them. Is it a world of mere hope, aspirations, longings? Or is it a world where we are in touch with great realities and with the Supreme Reality—God? If this be true, theft, progress, towards a better world will become more speedy and sure if men hold their ideate and pursue them with resolute loyalty in spite-of obstacles and disappointments because they are convinced that these ideals Have behind them and within them the authority, and strength of unchanging reality. Thus, what the whole world ijeeds is a recovery of soul. A CHRISTIAN WAY. Let me put this thought in a more directly Christian way. I hope that many of us have been finding delight and refreshment in the Christmas carols, j Here are the words of one of them a*bout the Christmas message of the angels:— "And man at war with man hears ■ uot The loro-song which they brliiE: 0 hush the noiso, ye men of strife, And hear the arigol3 sing." Do these Christmas voices tell only of a pathetic and wistful longing in the heart of humanity, of a world like the children's world of a happy make-be-lieve? Or do they tell of a real incoming of■ God Himself, into this actual world in the Person of His " Christ, bringing into that world the saving and transforming realities of His eternal Kingdom? No man can doubt that if what we call the Christian spirit prevailed the world would be changed. But its power to prevail would be immensely increased if we steadfastly believed that the Christian^ spirit is not a mere aspiration, but'the spirit of a real living and reigning Christ. If Christendom really held and acted upon the conviction that in, Jhis Christ, in His spirit, in His