■ 11111P FROM PAGE . ONE cite: Heart, Reason, Conscience and memory.
MURDERED CONSCIENCE • ".Why was it that mankind's catastrophes occurred time and again at
periodic intervals ? Because Reason murdered Conscience. Politics and mathematics are two entirely different matters; for human beings are not figures. If political reason' is drilled long enough to rely merely on its own isolated work, it is bound 'n take the wrong turning some' or later. Every time conscience is blotter out it leads
to heartlessness. And when, finally, new heaps of rubble are piled on the ruins, why is it that reconstruction, which, after all, must conic. is so desperately difficult ? Why does it cause such bitterness that sometimes the last spark of hope and will to live evaporates and is quencued ? Why is it that millionsupon millions wander about as refugeec, outlawed, homeless, uprooted, a burden to themselves and others millions who want nothing but to lead their poor, individual lives in that inner community to which they belong?
MANKIND SLEEPWALKING "And why all ,his';" asked the speaker. "Only because our memory is too short, because, in small as in big things, we men always forget what we should have learned long ago from ,hitter experience. This is the reason why every reconstruction proceeds in the sante harsh and desperate way, because it is our habit—as close scrutiny will show—to fall into the same errors over and over again. This, after all, is the source of every human misfortune— that we refuse to learn from l.istory, however recent the experience, but go on treading, with the surefootedhess of a sleepwalket, the same old beaten tracks.
HISTORIC RESPONSIBILITY " Only when heart and conscience, reason and memory arc at work, blended in one mighty indissoluble harmony, only then shall we be entitled to hope, and indeed no optimism will be too extravagant. Then we may forget, nay, even more, praise the past. As is only natural, we have not yet reached that hour. Little or nothing has yet been decided and it could scarcely be otherwise. It would be too much to expect miracles from those who to-day bear the heavy burden of an historic responsibility; and do their best in honest endeavour to lay, step by step. the foundations of a coming peace. But even the best treaties, the most accomplished casuistry can provide only the basis whose lasting solidity must depend on the inner preparedness of the carious peoples and States, and, indeed, of individuals, and upon their desire to build a better and peaceful order worthy of
mankind. Our will and imagination must no longer be dominated by power as an idea, but by the power of moral law, of ethics and justice in both public and private matters
SOUL'S SUNSET
" True, all this is not ncw, but only the result of ancient Christian ideas. Perhaps we had a tendency to try and reduce all too often any deep and fundamental difference between opposed principles to the terse formula of Christ against anti-Christ, and perhaps for, this reason we sometimes saw the problems
in an over-simplified outline. It may well he contended that the deepest and most sacred conceptions should not he misused to provide an emergency exit, as it were, when human frailty and a mere lip-service to the right principles have left us in a maze of stony paths with no way out in sight. This can be fully understood perhaps only by a man --on this point you can take the word of the speaker now addressing you— 'who, by the fiery chasms of hatred and falsehood, has been driven to despair. and who only in these dark hours of the sunset of the soul discovered how difficult it can he to persevere in the practice of Christian thinking, previously taken for granted, and how excruciatingly difficult the earnest observance of Christian Commandments can lie.
" Practical Christianity is not tied to certain times and opportunities, nor can it be nationalised. It means, in practical terms, the belief in the possibility and necessity' of a true and effective international law: it involves an avowal of faith in the conquering power of the idea of humanity.
" And why ? For the simple reason that God did not complete His work of creation on the sixth day with the Kingdom of Animals. Thus, Christian thinking will put us on the trail of those determining forces of all sane life: heart, conscience, reason and memory."