Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 28 July 1938, Page 6

Timely Topics

In a recent speech, Lord Elton, said; “The fixed point of Christian morality is the home, the one among the many. And perhaps, when all is said, it is t 0 that fixed point that

THE HOME AS A FIXED POINT.

all orthodoxies return. Perhaps—'and at least that would please the psychologists—the basis of all my beliefs is no system, but the mysterious lead-ing-strings of the past. Perhaps the Arnold tradition mattered chiefly because it taught me what I had learnt already, and all the scintillations of Balliol mattered less than that evening bell which was suddenly all the church bells of my childhood. Perhaps the war was only a leaving home and then, long afterwards, my mother standing in the light of the hSall. Perhaps politics was the firelight 0 L my own hearth reflected on the dark- waters of humanity. Perhaps all life is only a child scampering through-the dusk beneath the apple trees towards the lighted windows of home.”

“Here (says Professor Seton. Watson) is the true problem which faces the rising generation, and to which they 'alone can. give a decisive answer. Is the British Commonwealth of Hattons a worthy ideal, capable of further development, capable of setting an example of pe'ace, liberty and (ordered government for men of every race and creed, or was it from the first a mere foolish illusion, and has it in any case passed its prime? “Is it possible t Q argue that, having been built up on principles of ‘grab and piracy,’ it is not worth defending against the glories of totalitarian doctrine? “Was nothing saved for the, world by those w|t\i gave their lives. in the last war, even though the ideal of ending war is still unrealised? Have we forgotten the emancipation of whole nations? And are we to confess that the Lebgue and the Covenant also were acts of. folly, hypocrisy or illusion, which it is time to repudiate, now that their inefflcacy has been proved? “It might as well be argued—with all reverence I s'ay it — that Christianity is a lost creed because the Crucifixion was not followed by the Second Advent. Was not the saving of a free commonwealth a great fachlevement, and may not its survival, if we show the necessary encouragement and endurance, yet avail to redress the balance in favour of Europe’s lost liberties?

THE TRUE PROBLEM.

“If the answer of British youth-be negative, it will mean a denial hot merely of the democratic position, but of the Christian and ethical creed upon which our political institutions ultimately rest —a relapse into true aniarchy of thought. “Then, indeed, the leadership must pass to races which are ready to sacrifice themselves to a narrower, but more virile, creed. But negation will not save us from attack; it will only mean that, after first flinging away our honour, we shall be left to perish ingloriously and unaided.” ; -