The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1943 THEN AND NOW

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24775, 24 December 1943, Page 6

The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1943 THEN AND NOW

It was a weary world, 1943 years ago, war-torn and disillusioned. The first of the Roman dictators sat uneasily by the Tiber, propped by men's longing for peace at any price. There was rebellion in Spain and menace on the Persian frontier. Palestine was bandit-ridden. Beyond the ancient Maginot Line along the Rhine and the Danube was Germany, ever hostile. And behind the forests of Germany were dim hinterlands whence anything might come. Rome had learnt that before, and in ■many a day of disaster was to learn it again. There was political murder in the capital. The slums of Italy were full of the dispossessed, ihere was much need of revenue when "there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be taxed." The edict, in the minds of men, was the autumn's major event. In Rome they knew nothing of a man and his wife who went to Bethlehem in obedience to the command "to proceed for the enrolment to their own Government." They knew nothing of a Child who was born. He grew to manhood, and no messengers ran to the ends of the world when He died a felon's death. When Claudius, intent on settling a Ghetto quarrel, heard obscure men claim, a few years later, that the Man had risen from the dead, he merely scribbled an order for a decree to be set up at Nazareth threatening death for any who should steal dead men's bodies from their graves. The trend of history was still obscure. Men were unaware that half a century of a new age was past. It was a new age because a hope had come. The whisper was abroad that God was not dead. Dorothy Savers has resurrected a strange tale from Plutarch. A ship was-be-calmed one evening off the Echinadea when a voice hailed the helmsman over > the twilight water. "Thamus!" it cried—three times. Thamus answered. Then from the gloom-wrapped beach came the words: "When you come over against Palodes announce that Great Pan is dead." Off Palodes wind and water were still. Thamus mounted the stern. It was black night now. He cried: "Great Pan is dead!" From the shore rose a wailing, long and sad. In those days Christ was born in Bethlehem. With Him hope was born. Men had sought for it in a thousand cults. They sought it still in the worship of the Emperor and the Spirit of Rome, and when autocracy staged its conflict between the claims of the State and the claims of God the catacombs were filled with martyrs. The same strife came ten years ago to Germany. For a season the grotesque Fuehrer-god triumphed. So did the deified Duce of Rome. But the Christians outlived them and outdied them. Justin was reborn in Niemoller. The Christians had hope. It was the fruit of faith, and to-morrow celebrates its birth at Bethlehem. It is the urgent task of the • Christian Church to interpret its message to a distracted age in plain and simple language and with the passion of conviction. If it is true it is stupendous, and men still die for their faith in it.

Long before the first Christmas Day the saintliest of all philosophers was dying in Athens. Gathered in the prison cell where their master's search for truth was to meet its martyrdom, Socrates' disciples discussed the soul's immortality. It is a "word of God," says one in Plato's story of the day, that man needs on such a theme. Across the Aegean in Ephesus the aged disciple of Another Master took up the theme nearly five centuries later. "The Word," he wrote, "was made flesh and dwelt among us." So in a verse he told the Christmas story. To-morrow many languages will tell it again in sermon and in song. And some perhaps will see that in the words of the Evangelist there lies a" humbler meaning which goes beyond the Incarnation. The Word, if it is to touch and heal the world, must still be made flesh. All goodness is without reality until it moves the hands of men. It is only when great ideas are translated into dedicated lives that things happen in the world. Itis still "the Word made flesh" that achieves the impossible. "The world is weary of its past," wrote the Times on Christmas Eve twenty-four years ago, "and we know that we cannot live any longer as we used to live. We have suffered too much and lost too much for that. And in our sufferings and loss we have seen visions and dreamed dreams. We know that there is more both within us and outside us than we dreamed live years ago." It is the tragedy of the generation that evil found incarnation in strong, determined men. Courage and self-sacrifice found few great hearts to fill. The world was weary: Youth was cynical. The chance has come agaiu. "We know that there is more within us and outside us than we dreamed five years ago."

2ND DIVISION'S EXPLOITS The latest of General Freyberg's reports on the opera!ions of the 2nd Division is as clear and illuminating as its predecessors. It comes at a moment when many in New Zealand are hungry for a plain, straightforward account of the actions in which their dear ones have been engaged. The correspondents' stories have not been entirely satisfactory, but General Freyberg's report is completely so. It is the first from the Italian front, and deals with the division's part in the fighting approach of the Eighth Army to the Sangro River line, the seizing of a bridgehead across the river, the breaching of the enemy's winter line on a wide front, and the storming of the dominating position of Castjel Frentano. These events took place at the end of November and the beginning of December. As General Freyberg anticipates in his report, the division has since seen heavy fighting in its further advance to the outskirts of Orsogna. As on the long pursuit from El Alamein to Enfidaville, the division is again found on the left or inland flank of the Eighth Army, and working in close association with the Fourth Indian Division.

There the parallel ends. General Freyberg's report brings out the radical differences in climate and terrain, and the new problems posed for fighting , commanders and for transport and supply. It is gratifying to have his assurance that, in meeting most difficult conditions, the division has proved itself "a wellbalanced fighting formation, excellently equipped and trained for this campaign in Europe." Here is a plain intimation of the success of the incorporation of armoured formations in what was previously a purely infantry division, although highly mechanised. A little imagination should be added to the report to realise what the division has been up against and what it has achieved. As General Montgomery puts it in a congratulatory message, the division was faced "with forces of nature and by a determined enemy in strongly-prepared positions" and dealt with both "in a manner beyond all praise." NIGHT MEDICAL SERVICE The public of Auckland is faced with a serious., emergency in the cessation of the night medical service, which comes without any warning. Until two months ago, a system was operating under which the Hospital Board worked in conjunction with the British Medical Association. Since then, the association has carried on the scheme unaided, but now finds it impossible to continue doing so. The chairman of the Hospital Board has, however, refused categorically to meet a request that the possibility of renewed co-opera-tion should be discussed. In so doing, he quotes a resolution of the board passed in September. The grounds then were that a resident medical officer could not be spared to work in conjunction with private practitioners. Whether that is still the staff position, the chairman does not say. He insists instead that the whole responsibility rests with the medical profession itself. This is not good enough. The board may be under no direct obligation to help in providing a service. But these are abnormal times, when the good of the community ought to outweigh legal niceties. The hospital is a public institution, supported by taxation, local and general. On the broad interpretation of its functions, the interests of the community should come first. Refusing even to discuss the question of maintaining a service which has proved its value is not consistent with such an interpretation of its duties. However good a case the board may have for declining what appears, on many grounds, an obligation it should accept, the chairman puts it out of court by his abrupt refusal even to consider renewing the previous arrangement. The public has the right to expect more of him than this.