NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24134, 28 November 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

THE AMERICAN IDEA If we understood a little better the vast import of the problems and perplexities with which Americans are now faced, we should be both more sympathetic and more interested, writes the Hon. Harold Xicolson in the Spectator. We do not always remember that the fathers and mothers of most Americans left Europe because tlve.y did not like it, and that there remain hereditary memories and associations which ttijr their nerves apart. We do not always remember that although in this war their ideals are identical with ours, yet "The American Idea" is an even more abstract conception, that it is "a, shining thing in the mind." Immense and trail, this idea dominates their consciousness and they fear that if again they become entangled in the complexities'of Europe the rainbow may fade. STARLINGS IN LONDON Starlings have settled for roosting purposes in the centre of London, writes Mr. Eric Parker in his new book, "World of Birds," and he goes on to relate his observations at St. Paul's Cathedral as follows: —Sunset j was at 20 minutes past four. By four o'clock starlings were beginning to drop in, and at quarter past the boughs of the plane trees in the churchyard were black with hundreds. Starlings fluttered about the belltowers of the Cathedral, about the dome, about the orb and cross above the dome: starlings dotted the skyline of the apse, studded ledges of entablatures, perched about arches, cornices, the tracery of windows, the hollows of carved stone; starlings swept down in flocks to dome, roof, towers, swept up again like swarms of bees, swung down again, whirled up again. And every bird about the church was singing—an anthem of birds' voices to which you might stand to listen under St. Paul's Cross north of the Cathedral, and hear no sound of the roaring City traffic to the south. CAUSE AND EFFECT The truth which I am most concerned to make, says Dr. R. Corkev, M.P., writing in the Hibbert Journal, is that the war cannot be held to be a judgment of God upon the multitude of suffering humanity for either moral delinquencies or religious unbelief. II there is abundant reason to believe that the war has been the.outcome ol one set of evil causes, what right have we to assert that it. was the judgment , of God upon men for a number of other shortcomings which, so far as Ave know, had no bearing whatever on the out- , break of the conflict P If it was mainly a product, and, as I believe, an almost inevitable product, of an imperfect . international system, what right have we to divert attention from that central fact by suggesting that the holo- , canst: is a judgment of God upon ■ humanity for its repudiation of Him? i Do we not run the risk of hiding front i ourselves the real lesson in these > events by dragging in irrelevances? Our > social evils and irreligion are bad i enough. God knows, and it may be ' within the sweep of His far-reaching • purpose to stab us wide awake to them i in these searching days. But they are not the source of oui present woe, nor,

if there is any sense in the idea of j diyine guidance, are they the chief evils ! to which God is directing our attention i to-day. On the contrary, the evils He is judging, and the evils He would have us condemn, are the evils that actually brought about the war. The "logic of events" has been at work and has set in motion an avalanche. A set of evil political conditions, all perfectly familiar, have been allowed to work out their accustomed evil fruit in their accustomed evil way. Hell has been let loose on us, and the reasons are not so vorv mysterious. If the judgment of God can be said to be manifest in these events at all, it is a judgment directed primarily not against low morals but 1 against bad politics; not against defects J within our society but against folly in our external affairs. CHRISTIAN REUNION Many of us in the Free Churches are not very good at worship, writes the Rev. Hugh Martin in his book, "Christian Reunion." Our passion for freedom has with some become a selfwill which is too intolerant of discipline and team work. We are too dependent on the personal factor of the popularity of the individual preacher. We go to church "to hear so-and-so." We have too little respect for tradition and for our place in the Holy Catholic ■ Church of all the ages. We have too little care for dignity and beauty in ' the worship of God, though happily ' there has bken great improvement in ■ this respect in recent years. The ; Church of England, on the other hand. ! would profit by the sterner intellectual : training given to the Presbyterian ministry. Baptists and Methodists could ■ teach some sections of it the passion for , personal religion and evangelism, while ' they in return could learn much from i its emphasis upon the historic con- > t-iunity of the Church through the ages. 3 Congregationalists could teach many ,of ' us lessons of spiritual freedom and inj. tellectual adventure, of vivid response j to the needs of the hour; they believe more than most in the open mind and ] in the contemporary guidance of the 1 Holy /Spirit. The Friends could teach us • the art of listening and of courageous pioneering. If the Free Churches were led to give a greater place to sacramental worship, the Church of England 1 nn the other hand might come to value ' the pulpit more highly as "the throne 1 of the word of God."