"THIS ALSO WILL PASS"

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 36, Issue 2, 1 May 1945, Page 13

"THIS ALSO WILL PASS"

I put down my newspaper to listen to the wireless; switching over from eye to ear. But although the medium was changed, the experience was the same. Every word, written and oral, had but one theme— the war. War on the West Front, m Italy, on the Eastern Front, m Burma. War "monopolising every inch of space,accounting for every word uttered. And yet that is not surprising. This worldwide conflict dominates life today. There are very few who are left unscathed by its ravages. Hungrily, anxious we grasp at any straw which will show how the mighty wind is blowing. The Press and the radio are agents that minister to this universal craving. But as I read I soliloquised, as I listened I sighed. If only it were possible to escape from the noise of battle even for a little while. I felt at one with the Prophet Jeremiah when he cried, -"0 thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou "be quiet? Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest and be still." I longed for those carefree days when a thrill came from the result of a cricket when the gloomiest foreboding of the wireless was "a deep depression approaching from Iceland." That is\ however, to indulge m wishful thinking. To escape from our present lot is not possible, nor as things remain do I think it is to t>e desired. Jeremiah must have reached a similar conclusion, for, after his cry that the sword should /be sheathed, he goes on to say, "How can it be quiet seeing the Lord hath given it a charge?" That is our position to-day. "We misunderstand the Providence of God if we imagine that there could be peace with such elements at work, such passions striving for mastery as m Nazi Germany.* There can be no peace with incarnated selfishness, no peace so long as tyranny reigns over the souls and bodies of men. The war must continue until these things have been completely eradicated from the face of the earth. Yet, though we cannot escape from the horrors of these fateful days, what we can do, what we should do, is to place the present happenings m their right perspective. After over five years of war it is difficult to imagine a world at peace. As a result we are inclined to regard passing events as permanent misfortunes.

That attitude must be changed. Mr, Ivan M. Maisky was the Russian Ambassador m London during many eventful years."^ He might have been dispirited when the relations between our two countries were strained almost to breaking point. He might have been elated by" the wave of popularity that surged over him when m 1941 Russia became our ally. But he remained unmoved either^ by triumph o~ disaster. On his dest he kept a printed card which, he told me, always gav6 him balance. That card had on it the words, "This also will pass." As Christians that should be our attitude to the present conflagration. Let us remember that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for . us a far more exceeding \ and eternal weight of glory: while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." —By a layman m the "Church of England Newspaper."