HUMAN TREASURES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4220, 6 December 1939, Page 10

HUMAN TREASURES

THE CHURCH AND THE AGGRESSORS. “While to most people it appears inevitable that we who are the custodians of the weak and helpless must be prepared to meet force by superior force, there arc those among us who would renounce the appeal to armaments, and ti-ust to the ultimate triumph of spiritual weapons alone. For myself, I do not see how we can surrender the protection of human treasures without an appeal to the ■only language which aggressors un-

derstand. In resisting force by force, it does not mean that we have lost our faith In the ultimate triumph of justice and righteousness, or that we have renounced our readiness to take counsel with other nations. But no headway can be made unless there is this readiness on bothsides, with the assui'ance that truth will be respected and treaties remain inviolate. It may be our' duty from the first to consider wherein as a nation we have fallen

short, and where, and to what extent, reparations are due. Peace cannot be won while each disputant is only prepared to consider his own virtues and the moral failures of those with whom he differs. Wc have to understand, as far as we are able, what those who differ from us are thinking and what they are convinced is our duty."—The Rev. R. Pyke, president of the English Methodist Conference.