Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 12 February 1940, Page 4

Timely Topics

“What are the prospects of peace in the future?” asks Dean Inge. “We all i hoped that the ghastly lesson of the i Great War would be enough. But there is always danger • when a generation |grown up who have not known war jat first hand. There is also a perfmanent danger from the military adivisers of the Government, who are ap: ito assume that war must come sooner for later, and that it is for them m |consider whether the chances ot vie flory would be increased or diminfished by delay. Nothing that ha: ibcen said about the folly and wicked fness of this terrible institution, tlv |curse of the human race, must b | taken to detract in the slightest d. ■ fgree from the admiration and grauStude which wo all feci for tho brave Imen who risk and often lose their f lives in the service of their country 4lf there were not a noble side of war. ?the indignation of mankind would ?have swept it away long ago. It : •to the honour of human nature that f the appeal for self-sacrifice is stronger |than all the self-regarding instincts |We must never say or think that, our ’gallant boys died in vain. Their i cause was sanctified by their devo-lution;-their reward is with their God: their place is among the noble army , of martyrs." i | “The choice of standpoint and stanI dards has become urgent if history is not to be brought into disrepute by being thus openly exploited in the interests of political propaganda Csays Canon C. Raven). II is useless to declaim against the ideologists if the only alternative to their schematisings is a return to storytelling. History properly appreciated has a profound importance for mankind: of that we are all nowadays convinced. It supplies, if we use it rightly, the data by which individuals and society can interpret their experience, understand their past and estimate their future. It reveals, to the believer, the ways of God with His children. As such its study should not be determined by the personal preferences and prejudices of the historian, nor in the interests of social, national or ecclesiastical advantage. Nor is it enough for him to record what is objectively true: he must select his material by a true standard of values, and estimate its significance ing his vocation if ho docs not conwelfare. The historian is surely abusing his vocaiton if he does not constantly strive to sift and interpret his material in the light of tho eternal: otherwise he drops to the level of n propagandist.”

SERVICE AND DEVOTION.

THE INSPIRATION OF HISTORY.