ENGLAND’S DESTINY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 290, 6 December 1929, Page 7

ENGLAND’S DESTINY

Sir, —Will you kindly allow me space to quote a passage occurring in a recent publication, “The Christ of the English Road”? —a passage which is appropos to the thoughts stirring in the minds of many of us since celebrating the anniversary of Armistice Day last month.

“Ever since the end of the war a few men, men of noble lives and great intelligence, had looked out on the ruin of the world and seen there the Christ of the English Road, more beautiful than he had ever seemed to them before, standing with arms outstretched as if he would embrace the world, and weeping over Europe as he had wept over Jerusalem. It came to them that the great saying, “Patriotism is not enough,’’ led to the saying, still greater, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me;’’ and they knew, looking that that divine figure, who -on down the ages had kept his promise to be with men to the end of the world, and in every age had revealed something new to them, that he had been crucified anew on the cross of war, and now was revealing to men the next step in the resurrection of humanity, towards the Kingdom of God. From that moment men have seen on the English road a Christ who belongs to all the world and whose mission is to all mankind. Yet they have not lost the precious sense that we belong to them, for their conviction grows that he has been preparing England to play a noble part in the new world slowly building from the blackened ruins of the old. The Christ of the English road has a work for us to do which lies beyond the shores of England, beyond the far-flung boundaries of the British Empire.

It may seem to us the greatest and hardest work to which our England has ever laid her hand; it may take many years, perhaps centuries, for its accomplishment; it will be accompanied by broken hopes, heart-breaking disappointments, and even by hours of despair: but it is a work which must be done, for, until it is done, Christ cannot bring the Kingdom of God to Earth, nor can there be one Shepherd and one fold. England, knowing that patriotism is not enough, knowing that war is hateful to God and man, must plough up the jealousies and hatreds of a thousand years of the world and sow the seeds of universal peace.” “A BROTHER”