Civilisation in the Balance; Spiritual Forces Alone can Save

Northern Advocate, 3 January 1939, Page 5

Civilisation in the Balance; Spiritual Forces Alone can Save

(Received 2.30 p.m.) RUGBY, January 2,

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cosmo Lang, in a New Year broadcast, said that in the confused situation, In which it sometimes seemed that the whole world was going mad, thankfulness for deliverance in the past gives way to fear of new danger which may be coming in the future. The way of sanity and strength was to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

To prepare for the worst was indeed a bounden duty. “In a world full of threats and dangers,” he said, “we dare not neglect the defence of the lives, homes and liberties of our people, and of all that men care to live for, but all the while we must hope for the best.

“To speak and think as if it were sure to come may even help to make it come.

“We must go forward as one people in the spirit of national unity. Parties there will be, and must be, but uniting them all is the value we all set on tradition, on liberties, and on. the way of common life embodied in our democracy. f, “We must go forward in pursuit of peace. “In the present conditions of this disordered world, we are beholding a judgment day. It is our once vaunted civilisation! that is being judged. “Think of the millions in China driven .homeless and helpless before the ruthless armies of a civilised Power. “Think of the thousands turned adrift into the world by the relentless persecution perpetrated by a highly civilised State.

“In spite of all hopes of progress, are these not signs of a return to the dark ages?

“Surely it is being made plain that civilisation cannot save itself. “Its salvation and its redemption from downward tendencies are always at work within it.

“They mu'st not come from itself, but from another world —the spiritual world.”