The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1950. CHRISTMAS, 1950

Wanganui Chronicle, 23 December 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1950. CHRISTMAS, 1950

’"P’HIS Christmas is being celebrated under a condition of stress. Men feet and fear that it may be the last peaceful Christmas season they may experience, for the war clouds hang ominously low. This is no cheerful thought, but it is one that rides the minds of men. Is Christmas under sueh circumstances something of a misnomer? The question is a natural one to ask at the present time. Being a natural one it deserves consideration to see whether any answer can be given to it. Let a start be made with Christmas itself and ask what it really is? It is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the divine man who provided the world with a supreme example of how life may and should be lived. Had that example not been before men during the past twenty centuries what shape would the world be in today? Nobody can say. Such a question is impossible of answer because the modern mind eannot conceive of a world in which the Christian religion had not been practiced over the whole of the Christian era. Such a proposition defies the imagination. Had Jesus not come at the psychological moment in history there would have been no utter darkness because from a survey of the evidence it is clear that sueh would not have been the case. Socrates has been spoken and written of as the great pre-Christian Christian. The description befits the great Greek. But would the world without the example of Jesus have made the progress in human association that it has done? It can be. said with a fair degree of confidence that it would not have done. For the advantages which the world enjoys through that supremo example of unselfishness and harmonious living being before men’s eyes this generation should be duly thankful. These advantages are not easily to be apprized, but it can safely be said that had Christianity not come when it did civilisation would not now be at its present level. When an examination is made of the times in which Jesus lived, it is to be found that the world was then faced with a crisis in the political, ethical and social setup. The Roman Empire was • at the time rotten to the core, Pontius Pilate was kept for a long term as procurator of Judea simply .because quick changes in respect to that office was ruining the province owing to the rapacity of the procurators. Not only was Rome’s attitude towards other nations wholly non-moral and pure opportunist—like Russia’s attitude today—but the measure of corruption that was contained in its provincial administration would make a Chicago gangster feels like a stealer of chicken-feed. The fine flower of Greek civilisation had been crushed under the iron heel of the Roman legions and Alexander’s Empire had dissolved like snow before a summer sun. Anyone viewing the world situation in the year A.D. 3 would be entitled to be severely depressed by the bleakness of the outlook. The Roman world was itself beset by an overburdensome pessimism; it was a world without hope and with suicide as a convenient and popular means of escape. And yet the world has gone on and throughout the centuries there has been discernible a ferment in the minds of men. Growing with a consistency that is truly remarkable when viewed in historic perspective this ferment has taken increasing hold upon the human family. Despite the wars that have been fought, the Boer War, World War 1.. Balkan wars enough, China subjected 1o invasion by Russia and Japan, Ihe Russo-Japanese war, civil war in China extending over years, the Spanish Civil War with Nazi and Fascist aid to Franco, World War 11., the Korean War and now the line-up of Soviet forces and the satellite countries the world is in far betteer shape after fifty years of such upheavals than it was a hundred years ago. There is more of international co-operation both for defence and for th? promotion of human welfare. American isolationism has completely gone and that same country while but a quarter of a century ago was clinging to the belief that it could be rich in a wretched world now takes the labours of Hercules upon its own massive shoulders. The economic, recovery of the world after the second great conflict has been of such a speed that its very velocity has robbed the achievement of the merit due to it. Much more remains to be done, but that should not cloak past accomplishment of its significance. That accomplishment would not have been possible had the spirit of goodwill among men and towards men not been as strong as it has been and still is today. Historically, then, there is much more to be thankful for than at any time in the past.

But what of the present situation when it appears that the nations are moving closer together prior to commencing a great conflict? The challenge is surely there. But that challenge in more or less definite form has always been present. At the moment the challenge comes from a consolidated enemy: but even in that it is not all disadvantage. The danger can be assessed, its direction can be seen, its centre can be attacked. The most dangerous enemy is not the mighty host that gathers with the morning light, but the stealthy enemy that works in the night unsuspected by his intended victim. In today’s situation the details are as clear as daylight can make them. All that is necessary to overcome them is resolution to win. Those who are standing for a fairer’ world, those who believe in the supreme importance of human personality have a great cause to fight and even to die for than have those whore major ideal is a material world in which the creative spark in the human being is stifled and suppressed, where corruption naturally springs up ih sudden mushroom growth and taints with its fungoid stench the air men breathe. At the turn of the. half century the world presents more organised effort for goodwill and the support of human personality than it has ever before witnessed and all of this, yes all of it is chiefly due to the influence of that personality who first saw the light in Palestine twenty centuries since. Such a message as. He brought into the world is a cause for rejoicing today.. It is a message that has succeeded in th’? past, that is succeeding now and eannot fail in the future. Let us then keep Christmas with a glad heart.