NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23870, 22 January 1941, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS

BOLDEST PLEASURES SAFEST "The boldest measures are the safest." said Nelson. At every hour henceforth we must remember that •word, writes Mr. .T. L. Garvin. 1 lie eastern Mediterranean is tho sea where Nelson's genius of attack tilled the world with his fame when in one naval battle he destroyed all the hopes and prospects of Napoleon's adventure in Egypt. Far more critically than then the fate and fortunes of everything we light for are staked in the eastern Mediterranean. On one hand, this is a situation which requires strong, strokes with measured audacity against the Axis plan for the destruction of the British Empire. On the other hand, the scene of Mussolini's latest aggression lias been always penetrated through and through by the influence of seapower. Henceforth the eastern Mediterranean offers unexpected and unprecedented advantages for the combined action of all British arms. FAUST AMONG THE NATIONS The Nazis' instinct for sheer destruction incites them accurately when it prompts them to do their utmost to reduce such places as St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey to ashes, writes Dr. Henry Newnham in the Sunday Times. For Germany is to-day shaped in the image of one of her own gloomy legends. She is the Dr. Faustus of the nations, and has sold her soul to the devil for flashy, immediate advantage. To her the past—including her own—means nothing. It is positively inimical. Smash it, destroy it, break down to dust anything, material or moral, which might give your enemy strength or afford some future indictment against yourself. Above all, corrupt or disrupt every focus at" national activity, inspiration or tradition. Hence the unremitting nature of the air attack upon London, which can have no conceivable direct military advantage. Hence, too, the singling out of great historic buildings for special attention by the bombers.

CHURCH LEADERSHIP Anxiety on the question of Church leadership is nation-wide; we are not asking only for a call to prayer or for an official call for revival, but for a wise understanding on tho part of our Church leaders of the spiritual problems within our material needs, writes the Rev. Howard G. Marshall to tho Daily Telegraph. The readiness of all, both clergy and laity alike, to respond to a real sympathetic leadership, should be sufficiently apparent. Some clergy are doing magnificent work, just as many laymen arc; and they would be the first to appreciate the value of the right leadership,, This is a day of opportunity which the Church must not miss. There is a call for prophets, men who are inspired, and if they arc not forthcoming in tho higher ranks of the Church, Jot- us look for them elsewhere. .Just as our nation and Empire has become united in tho face of a. common foe, let the Christian Church become one in the spirit of the early Apostles and the knowledge that Cod is not slack concerning His promise to those who are willing to be led; A few months ago the nation was called on to awake from its slumbers, and, thank God, it did. When is tho same call coining to our Church to awake from her lethargy and speak with one voice as witnesses of His power?