Greymouth Evening Star. SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1946. Easter and World Order

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 April 1946, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1946. Easter and World Order

TO-MORROAV is. Easter Sunday, a day of special significance to Christians as it commemorates the great event that gave birth to the Christian faith and gave a new spring to a dying world. Easter is essentially a time of triumph; the Christian Church has ever placed its emphasis there, the more so in the midst of persecutions and in times of grave discouragement to the followers of Christ.

It is nearly 2000 years, since the great Easter drama. The antithesis of -the present world condition to the hope and the promise of Christianity fills many with perplexity and many with anxiety. Which will ultimately prevail —Caesar’s legions or the Gallilean’s doctrines? The claim of Germany to world dominance and the claim of Japan to Asiatic dominance have been defeated. But the claim 'of Russia to leadership of world revolution remains to create possibilities of national and international friction which no negotiation has so far succeeded in dissipat-

ing ‘ He is an optimist who supposes that international conferences and idealism expressed in earnest words will guarantee a safe future for mankind. So many of the nations’ plans are based on material expectations without regard to the fact that man is a spiritual as well as a material being. As was stated by a prominent visitor to the Dominion in recent months, “the only real hope of abiding peace in the world is in the influence of the Christian faith changing the hearts of men and thus producing new people to implement the new world of our desires.” No Guarantee of Peace.

Infinite juggling with the present international system cannot guarantee peace in a Yvorlcl which is still unwilling to reject the basic causes of war. The work! will not be saved by technicians, scientists and well-meaning political leaders who believe that the levelling of society and the spreading of wealth, will bring the millenium. Redemption from fear will come only when each nation has faith in the motives of every other nation. We have been told by Christian leaders that the world needs to-day above all the return to the Christian concept of life —to learn at the f ee (, of the Founder of Christianity the meaning of true humility and charily towards one’s neighbours.

There will be few who will deny that the present emphasis in the civilised world is on material things. By some it is interpreted as a sign of progress; by others as a.clear indication of decadence. Summarising contemporary trends and their dangers a recent article in The Times Literary Supplement had this to say:

“The lessening of faith in institutional religion which has accompanied the strides made in the technical sciences, has effected immense changes in the conditions of life. It has also enhanced the prestige of the technologist out of all proportion to the in--1 tellectual effort expended on the acquisition of his skill. Moreover, the manifold applications of modern science have placed instruments of power in the hands of men who are not necessarily qualified by character to be entrusted with their use, or the use of the social prestige and influence which our modern age permits them to exercise. We tend to produce a mass of moderately educated specialists whose knowledge may be restricted to a single department of bio-chem-istry or mechanics, whose sense of responsibility, in so far as it is admitted, is to science. “Standing opposite are the few magnates and monopolists, in themselves no doubt innocent of malevolence, who exploit for profit the appetites in which they traffic. In between, and distinct from those who must always feed where the flock is pastured, is an amorphous body of well-intentioned, compassionate, semi-rational men and women, standing aloof from the Church, who are persuaded that the frustrated Ariel in every Caliban is merely the victim of a physical environment. This they are determined at almost any cost to ameliorate. It would surprise them, no doubt, to be informed that the solicitude of some of them was, in fact, indistinguishable from contempt for the essential character of human life. Among these materialists are the planners, experts, scientific managers and administrators, who still uphold, more or less, the old order, but in whose hands are the means, acquired almost overnight of altering for good or ill the fundamental basis of society.” Weary Masses. If the aftermath of the war has upset the political and economic equilibrium of the war, what shall be said of the confusion into which human souls have been plunged? An earthly paradise without delay is what the largely de-Christianised masses are asking. The weary crowds are at the mercy of the first comer. More and

more are there of false gods and false prophets who humour the impatience of the over-excited masses. They all promise exclusively material well-being. To-day all men who have the loftier and gentle ideals—those that run like a golden eord through the pages of the New Testament —feel themselves confronted by the challenge by the lower, more savage man. The dual nature is in us all. There is man as he was and is; there is man as he might be and as he aspires to be in his more exalted moods. Before that universal trust necessary for abiding peace can be achieved among the nations, there will nee.d to be some fundamental changes. To the Christian mind there is one solution

of the problem; it can be rejected, but only at a grievous price.