FOR WORLD UNITY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20472, 28 July 1928, Page 21

FOR WORLD UNITY.

WORLD’S STUDENT CHRISTIAN FEDERATION. ACTIVE IN FORTY-THREE COUNTRIES. [Contributed.] A short time ago a member of the University, in conversation with a lay member of the community, hoard the opinion expressed, " There is something about stndcnts. You can always pick them. You may say they are just human, like everyone else, but for all that they are different. They are students, and that’s all there is about it.” If there is this *■ something ” about students which gives them such a characteristic individuality and distinguishes them, it is certainly characteristic of them that, on the whole, they tend to draw together naturally on a common ground of fellowship as students. And this is true beyond the confines of any given country or race. It is an observed fact. Combine this natural tendency with such a unifying force as the Spirit of Jesus Christ appealing to all that is idealistic in youth and you have one, perhaps the most potent, of the many influences which are slowly bringing the modern world to realise that it is really one household. Or, to change the figure, just as the child passes through the melting pot of adolescence to become a fully unified and ■ self-conscious individual, a personality, so there are many forces at work to-day which are bound to usher in the growing-up or coming of age of this young world of ours. Fast travel, especially by aeroplane, wireless telegraphy and telephony, and even television, closer interdependence among countries upon the basis of commerce, numerous societies and institutions for the pooling of world thought and practice in science and art, in politics and government and humanitarian activities: all these are such forces, and it is not too much to say that the student would when moved by a spiritual dynamic may prove to be the most potent.

The Speaker of the House of Commons on an important occasion said of a certain movement: “ I look to it to give the League of Nations its spirit—humanity because of Christianity—without which there can be no life.” A large expectation, surely, for, on the other hand, if we are fair-minded, we have to remember the forces not only of indifference and inertia, but also the neutral, not to say materialistic, attitude of science, only now breaking down before a new vision; and, further, the actively antagonistic forces of selfish and competitive systems of trade and national Governments all over the world. Yet an experienced observer expects of a movement of young people that it shall permeate and affect the whole complex life of the planet. The movement referred to was the World’s Student Christian Federation, not yet 33 years old, and embracing over 300,000 students in 43 countries; students of all sorts and kinds, of all communions and no communion, from Russian mystics to the most practical-minded Anglo-Saxons; students of black races, yellow races, brown races, white races. What unites so heterogeneous a fellowship? Two things: First, the spirit of youth and inquiry; and, secondly, an idea —one idea, that Jesus Christ believed something ideally right and practically possible, and demonstrated the truth of His belief in His own life when he said that we are all sons of our Father, that we could live together only in co-opera-tion, that divided we must perish. In Jesus Christ the student Christian movements of all the world find “ the Way, the Truth, the Life ”; in Him they realise their motto, “ Ut omnes unum eint.” And this spirit of union and fellowship has become flesh. There are practical expressions of it. For example, each year federation secretaries and men and women connected with the movement visit countries and peoples other than their own. New Zealanders remember the stimulus that resulted in recent years from the visits of Dr Datta, of India, Mr C. D. Hurrey, of 'America, and Dr John R. Mott, of the world, to this country. All important areas have seen the ambassadors of the S.C.M., notable among these being Rev. T. Z. Kso, of China, concerning whom the Archbishop of Canterbury said in 1924: “ No visitor to Great Britain since the war made a more profound and stimulating impression on British audiences.” Then, again, the Japanese students in America have granted, out of gratitude for the welcome received in the United States, a scholarship of 1500 dollars for an American student in Japan. Again the movement can proudly and gratefully claim that over 1100 students have gone as missionaries from the universities and colleges of Christendom. Further, to help destitute and students in war-stricken Europe, the International Student Service was organised, and its five years’ campaign resulted in the splendid sum of £500,000 being collected or contributed by students in 30 countries for their less fortunate fellows in 11 different lands. So is the spirit clothed in the flesh of human achievement —Ut omnes unum eint. To-morrow has been fixed as the day of prayer for New Zealand students. The movement has before it many tasks and problems. To help in realising its ideals some men and women are willing and able to contribute to its work by material gifts; some are unable to do this; but many can and should join in this day of intercession that all His followers may be one —Ut omnes unum sint.