PERSPECTIVE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4428, 21 May 1941, Page 6

PERSPECTIVE

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS. “If one may be quite frank, it seems to me that some of our people are in danger of losing their sense of perspective. There are those who are not ‘going forward’ quickly enough, and there are those are ‘going forward’ too quickly. The former are the people who even now fail to realise’that we are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for survival and have not the imagination to picture what a Hitler triumph would certainly mean. The latter are the people who in sermon, speech, or broadcast, are clamouring for the instant architecture of a brave new world. The questions they are asking are: What are our peace aims? What is to be our new order? How shall we promote social justice in our country? We must have vision and visionaries, if we are to be worthy of our traditions, and the ‘vision splendid’ has inspired many a notable achievement in our history. There is a noble text from the Bible which declares that ‘where there is no vision, the people perish.’ But whilst we pay our tribute to the men and women who see visions and dream dreams, we must remember to put first things first. What if we lose the war? The paramount war aim is victory. The classic beginning of a cookery recipe for hare soup must be well known.” —The Very Rev. Professor Archibald Main, D.D., in the Glasgow Herald.