NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23994, 18 June 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

IN TUNE WITH THE PEOPLE Whenever the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, goes among the people, which he does as occasion permits, it is seen that he and they are of one mood. Mr. Churchill himself typifies the gay gallantry with which the ordeal is being faced, and he also has the knack of felicitous phrase and the gilt of historical perspective. "At this turningpoint in the history of the world," lie said recently, "the spirit bred in freedom and nursed in tradition will enable us to bear our part' in such a way that none of our race who come after us will have any reason to cast reproach upon this generation. We have truly the right to feel that we are associated with a cause finer, higher, wider than any human or personal issues." SCIENTIFIC HUMANISM "As 1 look to the future, I am certain that morality with the associations that make up scientific humanism will never permanently displace essential Christianity," said the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr. Barnes, in addressing the Youth Forum. "But the disparagement of scientific humanism, fashionable in some religious groups, is an unfortunate kind of reactionary arrogance. Christ's teaching as to God naturally issues in the finest moral ideals of humanism, and gives a muchneeded strength to those ideals. Moreover, in scientific humanism such morality is conjoined to the view ol the universe which modern science sets before us. This view must ultimately enter into and transform traditional Christian dogma. The understanding of the world created by modern science has come to stay. Science may be barharised in years to come, but its eonelusions will not be utterly destroyed. Christian teachers must accept its methods and results or they will be ignored. The uniformity of nature which is the postulate of scientific investigation must coually be a postulate. of Christian theology. Thus any doctrine of a 'fall' must yield to the knowledge that man, in his evolutionary rise, finds it hard to overcome instincts which served his animals ancestors well." SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY The position of Russia these days is still obscure. She supports by sympathy —not by arms—Yugoslavia and Greece and thus disapproves of Axis policy in the Balkans. A few days later she signs a "neutrality" pact with another Axis power—Japan. Discussing the riddle of the Kremlin, the News Chronicle says: Wo can assume from the start that Bussia is still pursuing a policy of complete self-interest. Formerly it seemed to her good that both sides in the present war should exhaust themselves while she became stronger. For a time she did not feel in any immediate danger from Germany. In recent weeks, however, there has heen an unmistakable change in Soviet policy. Russia has undoubtedly good reasons lor her change of attitude. Hitler's blitzkrieg in the Balkans has greatly increased the danger to Turkey and brought much

nearer tlic moment when Russia may be completely isolated from any possible ally. When that time conies, if it does, a major clash between the lied Army and the German divisions now congregated in b'acked-out towns near the Russian border cannot he ruled out. ".Many signs.'' Mr. Churchill has recently said, "point to a Nazi attempt to secure the grain of the Lkraine and the oilfields of the Caucasus." And Mr. j Churchill does not speak without his book. PIPPA'S SONG "God's in His heaven—all's right with the world." True, it was a little Italian seamstress who. birdlike, sang that all's well, and believed it, moreover,'' says the Liverpool Post, "and she must have been ignorant of quite a lot of untoward happenings beyond her innocent experience. Nevertheless she had her tiny clouds, her pains and disappointments just as tiny; and although they were of 110 account if set in proportion with the universal scheme, surely to her they were as important as cloud's and pains and disappointments can possibly be. And yet she, the holi-day-making Pippa, was able to look past them and see nothing but good in the durable world. The season that is dedicated to awakening orchards and gardens, children and woodland creatures, was as green-golden as ever; the hillside "dew-pearla," the lark on the wing, the snail 011 the thorn. Socrates urged that each man ought to cultivate the habit of the soul, "gathering and collecting into herself from all sides out of the body, the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this life as far as she can." .So Pippa's song had great authority; and it' our home thoughts are turned as the wise Greek philosopher would have us turn them, we also shall know with irresistible conviction that just as nothing can stop the lilac from blossoming, the mountains from shining in the sun —nothing, not, even the darkest cloud — nor man's eyes from lifting to the mountains. so nothing can stop life from keening its lovely rhythm and harmony, nothing can deprive our inmost hearts of the old. simple belief that all's right with the world.