Dedicated to Noah in all his innocence

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

Rabindranath Tagore

For Tommy Patch

Lord, end this long war,

And of a meteor make a star.

Move on from mere thoughts to action!

“Do noble things, do not dream them all day long.” [ Res non verba]

““Do with all your might what God gives you to do; today” John Ruskin

Christ and other faiths

John 10:16 And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.

This is the basis of the understanding developed by Keshab Chunder Sen [November 19, 1838 - January 8, 1884 an Indian Christian scholar] who argued that Christ is more than a local manifestation, but that he is for others in the widest sense. Here from Romain Rolland’s Ramakrishna [p122] are Sen’s own words taken from this page.

Honour Christ would never be "Christian” in the popular acceptation of the term…. Christ is not Christianity…. Let it be your ambition to outgrow the popular types of narrower Christian faith and a merge in the vastness of Christ!”

“Other sheep have I” on this verse he writes.

“We belong to no Christian sect. We disclaim the Christian name.

Whoso believes in God and accepts Christ as the son of God has fellowship with Christ in the lord…. how explicit to is that well-known passage “And other sheep I have ". We, the gentiles [Indian] of the new dispensation, are of the other sheep. The shepherd knows us…. Christ has found us and accepted us….. That is enough…. is any Christian greater than Christ?”

After reading a passage from Luke He prayed "that the Holy Spirit might turn their glossy material substance into sanctifying spiritual forces so that upon entering our system they might be assimilated to it as the flesh and blood of all the saints in Christ Jesus".

Sri Ramakrishna taught Vivekananda how to regard mankind in a more generous and truer light of weakness and of strength (and not of sin and or virtue). The beloved the Divine mother fills him. “Fait voluntas tua”

A Muslim [unknown] scholar reflects on interfaith.

I should become one with you

And you would become one with me.

I should be the body,

You would be the soul.

Then no one would be able to say

That I am different from you,

Or that you are different from me.

Old article on Mission

Modern Though & Mission

By T.E. Slater

Bangalore A paper read before the Madras and Bangalore Missionary Conference

It cannot be denied that we are living in apparently revolutionary times; and that during recent years some great and start­ling changes have taken place in the theological world. New or neglected-truths have with unusual rapidity been brought to light. The allied studies-literary criticism and historical research; the studies of com­parative religion and comparative language, have been pursued with the greatest ardour, correcting and broadening our ideas of the Bible and Christianity. Physical science, by its marvellous conquests, has put men in possession of truths regarding the universe and its laws, which have modified to a considerable extent our conceptions of Nature, and with them our theological systems. Modern- spiritual philosophy, with its “inner light," its spiritual discernment of the heart, has relaxed the hand of autho­ritative dogma, and given a new voice to the Christian Gospel; while the rise of the modern democracy, with its new conscious­ness of the strength of the people, its reverence for all that is highest in man, has been enlarging our conception of redemption, and changing the complexion of much of our Church life. These movements, which we may characterize as those of critical science, comparative science, physical science, spiritual science, and social science, have been reflected in much of our national poetry, and in many great thinkers, preachers, and writers of modern times. Wordsworth and Tennyson, Browning Whittier, Coleridge, Neander, Thomas Erskine, McLeod Campbell, Ewing, Maurice, Robertson, T. H. Green, Stanley, Kingsley, Beecher, Bushnell, Baldwin Brown, not to mention a strong array of living teachers, represent one vast current of modern spiritual thought.

The consequence is that many old beliefs have been breathed upon by the "time spirit"; and their influence on the minds of the present generation is quietly passing away. Opinions, to question which half a century ago would have been branded as disloyalty to Christ, are to-day set aside as untenable by many Christian thinkers. People in the West have been breathing a new atmosphere during the last twenty or thirty years, and can no more hold as uncontested truth all that their fathers held before them than can the Hindus of the present day. Now, nothing whatever is to be gained, but much harm is done, by shutting our eyes to these facts. Surely we should discern the “signs of the times," and take an interest in what many of the best and most spiritual minds are thinking about and feeling after, as distinct from what are merely tendencies. Why should modern religious thought be inferior to medieval? Its scientific thought certainly is not.

(1) New Light on the Bible

Among other things, and foremost, we have to recognise the fact that the Bible lies within the field of this fresh light: that investigation must penetrate even the sacred domain of religion. And it seems to show a sad lack of faith to cry out against it, or to be fearful of the issue. It is still worse when a worldly policy would stifle inquiry; as in the case of the minister who refused to examine critical questions lest his opinions might have to undergo changes that would terminate his "usefulness" to his congregation; and of another who de­clined to attend to discussions of escha­tology lest it should constrain him to burn a part of the capital he had amassed in his stock of sermons!

Happily, the cry for reality is loud and deep; men must make clear to themselves what it is they believe, and why. It is a matter of vital interest to many who have not parted with evangelical Christianity to know how the new truth coheres with the old. And that I take to have been the sig­nificance of the Summer School of Theology that met at Oxford in 1892. It must have been a noble and an assuring sight to look on expert scholars and devout Christian men who, through the methods of modern study, had found a sure foundation for the facts of the old faith; who could freely assert the rights of historical criticism, and at the same time maintain a thoroughgoing faith in the supernatural. Ground for jealousy and alarm exists only when criticism is pursued with the express desire to eliminate the supernatural. There are critics and critics – rationalistic and rational; unscientific and scientific; destructive and constructive; atheistic and Christian.

We have heard a great deal of late years about the “higher criticism," which undertakes to inquire into the age and author­ship of the books of the Bible, and to pass judgment on the historical character of their contents. The fierce and hostile criticism to which the Scriptures have been subjected during the present century is but a reflection of the spirit of scepticism in regard to ancient history and writing in general; for the ancient his­tories of Greece and Rome, as well as of Israel, have been relegated to the region of myth. But the historical fabric which the “higher criticism" claimed to have destroyed is being reconstructed by the archaeologist and decipherer. The lands of the Bible have been explored, and the patient spade has rebuked, the hasty pen. The past has yielded up its dead. The discovery of the monuments of Egypt and Assyria and other Oriental lands has done for the Old Testament records what the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann did for the early traditions of Greece; has witnessed to the existence of writing in the ancient world, and to the substantial accuracy of the historical statements of the Bible.

Thus the destructive work of the higher critics, disfigured as it has been by a spirit of arrogance and scepticism, has not been barren of results. It has elucidated points that had previously been neglected, and has caused the text of the Old Testament to be minutely examined in a way that cannot but be helpful to the cause of truth; just as, the New Testament, given back to us from more than this; it has given place to the work of a very different school, which is broad and open. and not narrow and dogmatic. The spirit of rational, scientific criticism is, above all things, a spirit of reverence. It accepts a Divine revelation, given gradually, and culminating in the Incarnation. Its method is constructive, not destructive. From this we have nothing to fear. The faith "once for all delivered unto the saints" is our most precious legacy and nothing is more worthy of being earnestly contended for. Only what is unworthy of belief will be shaken and destroyed. Let the position be reverent and inquiring; open to the light; welcoming fresh knowledge; ready to shift its ground should good reasons appear; humble, flexible, progressive; and the cause of truth must gain.

It is this desire for honesty and truth in theological as in scientific matters which lies at the bottom of that very general desire in creed-holding churches for a re­statement of Bible doctrine - a revision of venerable “Confessions," such as may correspond to the facts of Christian history and of man's spiritual nature - which is one of the most notable features of our time. For it is alike the prerogative and the instinct of Christian intelligence thus to revise and revitalise its beliefs in the light of new knowledge and new tests; so did the leaders of the Protestant, Puritan, Methodist, Oxford, and Evangelical move­ments. The out breaking of the indwelling “Word" in men must speak or sing in new and quickening strains. Medieval concep­tions that have so long crushed the life of the Church are giving place to a broader, freer, kindlier faith; and the fresh current of liberal theology is renewing the spirit and power of many communities. The expansive movement of the modern Church really starts from a "renascent theology”; the new practice is the result of a fresh grasp of the old faith. While the move­ment is in process, restlessness and discon­tent there will inevitably be; but it is the uneasiness and impatience of the early spring as it breaks loose from the chill spell of winter, and hastens to greet the glory of summer.

For the greater part of the Middle Ages the Bible was subjected to no inquiry at all; but directly the great event called Protest­antism came, and light began to shine in the darkness, the inquiry was assured. Strange as it may seem, the terrible process known as the" higher criticism " originated with Martin Luther, who first ventured to treat the Bible - much in the way George Fox treated it - in "a natural, simple, truthful way;" and so with his quiet candour unhesitatingly rejected from the Canon the Epistle of James and the Book of Revelation as of "no theological import­ance." But Luther was a bold exception.

The Reformers and Puritans, as a body seeking for some infallible authority to set over against the disputed authority of Rome, not unnaturally fell back on the more Jewish acceptance of the holy oracles. These, they held, were infallibly inspired from cover to cover. And the Church has suffered, mentally and morally, ever since. An infallible standard is a sure temptation to a mechanical faith. In­fallibility always paralyses.

Now the higher criticism has done good service in "delivering from rabbinism," or enslavement to the letter of a holy book mis­interpreted and idolised, in making the real Bible to supersede an unreal. We now understand better what the Bible is.

Renan, in his autobiography, tells us that he was brought up to believe that Chris­tianity was bound up with the infallibility of Scripture; so that when he found that there were statements in the Bible irrecon­cilable with fact, he had no choice but to abandon Christianity, for he knew of no middle position between accepting the whole and rejecting the whole. If he had been taught differently, he would probably have remained a Christian. Such is the history of scepticism in many minds. The Bible is "infallible as a guide to Christ­ - infallible in its substance though not in its form, as a whole, though not in each particular part, in the spirit though not always in the letter." The truth lies in the drift, in the totality of meaning. Literal and mechanical accuracy in minute details was evidently not aimed at, and has not been attained.

We are familiar with the complexity and difficulty presented by several of the narra­tives of the Old Testament - the different accounts given, for example, of the Crea­tion, of the Flood, of the Exodus, of the Ten Commandments. These difficulties vanish if we accept one of the proved results of Biblical criticism, which has made a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of the Bible. I refer to the composite character of the Pentateuch and other parts; that we have several historical documents of different ages combined, whose materials have been drawn from diverse sources. If we separate, for example, what are called the Elohistic or Priestly and the Jehovistic or Prophetic sec­tions in the Book of Genesis, the story of the Flood becomes clear and intelligible. And so with other apparently inconsistent accounts. Such an hypothesis may, of course, affect the authorship of certain books, and the old belief that Moses wrote the Pentateuch in its present form may have to be given up; but it is certain that most fruitful consequences for a right in­terpretation of the Old Testament follow from such a discovery. Early Hebrew his­tory is very much like other history, and must be interpreted in the same way. Old Testament traditions have grown and varied as they have done elsewhere. And the actual facts which lie at the basis of these traditions must be ascertained by applying the principle of historical inquiry to the component materials sup­plied to us.

Of course the voice of scholarship is not unanimous on many points, and not until it is we may well take up a position of conservative caution; but we cannot shut our eyes to what is going on, and we must value truth above the most cherished convictions. And one of the most valuable results of Biblical criticism has at any rate been not merely a deliverance from a blind, slavish idolatry of the mere letter of Scripture, but that indifference to the Bible has become impossible. There has been a remarkable growth of Bible study in recent years. The old Book has more readers than ever; while "Helps" to the study of the Bible are sold by the million.

Comparative Religion.

(2) Another study that has been zealously and devotedly pursued, and that has affected theological and missionary thought, is that of Comparative Religion. It is through the medium of comparison that modern knowledge chiefly grows; and if theology is to become a modern science, we must widen the sphere of religious thought. This view of religion is thoroughly Pauline, besides being in harmony with the best ages of Christendom. We are indeed but recovering a noble standpoint long lost by the Christian world. And what has the study taught us? That we must not limit the idea of religion to any special time or place or creed: that no religion is wholly bad, that none has a monopoly of the truth. We have been taught to discover points of agreement in different forms of faith; and to attach a new significance to the deep and beautiful words of John: Christ, "The true Light which lighteth every man coming into the world.” and to Christ's own words: "I am the Light of the world." We need not now place the Christian Scriptures in sharp antagonism to other sacred books, seeing that truth is a unity, and that our Gospels have an affinity and relationship not only to the Hebrew, but to other non-Christian writings - Christianity being the complement and correction of pre-Christian faiths.

The study of comparative religion is already aiding missionary work, especially in a land like India. The unique position hitherto given to our Scriptures has produced the impression that Christianity is a local religion connected with the Hebrew Shastras, but having no affinity with those of other races. I believe this impression partly explains the slow progress of Indian missions. But the interest of the people will be awakened as they come to see that in Christ and Christianity their own highest truths are transfigured and fulfilled. I was delighted to see advertised lately a little book by an Indian native missionary entitled "Christ in the Vedas," which attempts to show how the true doc­trines of incarnation and sacrifice were shadowed forth in those ancient times. This is a fruitful line of thought too little pursued by our Indian Christians, and one of India's greatest needs is a sanctified native Christian scholarship that will think out these subjects for itself; interpret India's past to the present age, and not continue to simply echo the shibboleths of Western missionaries.

Must it not also afford the very highest motive and stimulus to missionary toil - ­fire our ardour and confirm our faith - to know that God has "never left Himself without witness"; that the scope of the Divine purpose is ampler than we dreamed; that wherever we go we find that God has been before us in the power and the teaching of His all-pervading Spirit; that we do not bring Christ and the heathen together for the first time; but that the religious lights of pagan lands have been unconscious emanations from the " Word of God," the spiritual revealer of God and of truth from the beginning? Without such an assurance missionary work would have no meaning, and would be a hopeless task. And does it not throw light on the dark, perplexing question of the salvation of the heathen in pre-Christian times? That question has never been properly faced and many Christian teachers would find themselves at a loss for a satisfactory answer. But when we realize that the historical period of Christ’s life and effort was but of an eternal feeling of the Divine heart; that the spiritual Christ was in the world He made, as its Teacher and Redeemer, prior to His incarnation, the one way of salvation for all ages and races is not difficult to see.

Science and the Bible.

(3) Coming now to modern scientific discoveries, culminating in the doctrine of evolution, we find that they have given many a shock to our popular theological ideas. But is there really anything to startle or alarm? “Whoever is afraid of science cannot believe in God." Because Charles Kingsley was not only a Chartist but an Evolutionist, he was reckoned by some" as bad as bad could be." And it was many years before a Christian teacher ventured to utter the dreaded word Evolu­tion save with bated breath. Now, how­ever, the idea has invaded almost every domain of thought; and we are becoming familiar with the notion that "a continu­ous progressive change according to certain laws" covers not only society, but religion, applies not only to society but to the Bible. Of course it is not atheistic evolution, by chance medley - a process utterly incredible-but Christian evolution, with a designing intelligence behind it, that so many thoughtful minds are studying - a theory of life per­fectly consistent with the supremacy of God and with the freedom of man, and, indeed, opening to us, in its ascending types, a new and wonderful vision of the Divine way in the creation and ruling of the world. If we accept the theory, we have undoubtedly to re-read the third as we have had to re-read the first chapter of the Book of Genesis; to find “an ideal portrait of man in his spiritual and Divine relations - a revelation of the meaning of life and of the principle of moral development to the full understanding of which he is meant to grow." Darwin, like Galileo and New­ton, will cause men to re-read their Bibles, but they will be none the worse for that. Dr. John Owen said that Newton's dis­coveries were" against evident testimonies of Scriptures; they were against traditional interpretations of Scripture, many of which it is the province of science and historical criticism, under the Providence of God, to correct and remove.

Good and honoured men there have been who thought that the truth of revelation stood or fell with the account of the creation given in Genesis, as commonly and literally understood. But it is now generally admitted by Christian scholars that all attempted reconciliations between Genesis and geology are as hopeless as they have been endless; that, as the late Professor Elmslie said, if the order of sequence in creation was meant to be chronological or historical, then either geology or Genesis was all wrong; that it was a mistake to treat that part of Scrip­ture as in any degree a physical record of creation. It was not geology; it was theology. What it gives is not a creed, but a God-the glorious personality and character of the great Creator, the design of the writer being to reveal and enforce religious truth. As such, this ancient chapter has accomplished a moral and religious revolution in overturning superstition and paganism, dualism, poly­theism, and atheism. And it means more, not less, than it did a generation ago, before the light of science was brought to bear upon it. It is now better understood and more honestly believed in that it has ever been before.

So with the Old Testament as a whole. The theory of a gradual growth, of a pro­gressive development in revelation, from dawn to perfect day, of a process of composi­tion and “canonisation "carried on under human limitations, instead of a sudden and complete illumination or a continual miraculous intervention, has been full of light, and has done immense service. The assaults of Ingersoll and other sceptics on the so-called “Mistakes of Moses," and on the imperfect morality of the Old Testament, might never have been made if the Church had formulated a doctrine of revelation accounting for these mistakes and immoralities, on a principle which satisfies the thinking man. The Old Testa­ment history is a faithful record of a race being trained to know God and to love righteousness, and it shows us the steps in their progress.

The aim of scientific theology is thus con­structive. True theology must be a growth. Without change and growth life cannot be. Where there is life there is progress. There is no worse enemy to a living Church than a propositional theology enforced by tradi­tional authority. There is nothing vital to add to such a system. “The living organ­ism grows; the dead crystal increases;" and the latter state has, alas! been truer of theology than the former. Scientific theo­logy, on the other hand, seeks to clear Divine truths from those accretions of human error that have stopped its own growth, and too often proved stumbling­ blocks in our brother's way. And what it is doing for the Old Testament it is doing also for the New-freeing the Gospel of Christ from scholastic and metaphysical conceptions really foreign to its essence; from traditional admixtures which hinder its acceptance by fair-minded and earnest men. It is often grievous to find how, not merely in the lower class of free thought journals, but by writers of culture like the late Cotter Morison, the spirit and aims of Christianity are completely misunderstood. I lately read a book, "Problems of the Future," by S. Laing, which I know has converted to agnosticism some inquiring Hindu minds, in which repulsive Cal­vinistic conceptions and views of the literal infallibility of the Bible are set forth as Christianity. The Christian is represented as afraid of light, and capable of swallowing any absurdities; as a selfish creature whose one object is to save his soul, that salvation consisting in escaping future punishment. The Church is surely responsible for such misrepresentation, in so far as it has allowed faith in Christ to become identified in the popular mind with faith in Scripture or faith in a certain theory of the Atonement and in a number of propositions regarding Christ, and without accepting which, a man cannot be a true Christian, thus making faith need­lessly difficult and to many minds repel­lent. What Christ required was that men should accept Him as the Lord and Ruler of their life and follow Him; and we have no right to ask more.

Return to the Primitive Gospel.

(4) And this, happily, is what the Church is coming back to. The present develop­ment of Christianity, under the quickening influences of the Spirit and the consequent spiritual discernment of the heart, is plead­ing for a return to the primitive Gospel. The original interest of the Church was moral rather than intellectual. The original faith centred in the ever-living Christ. But Greek thought brought With it a meta­physical interest in dogmatic theology, and Roman ideas a great ecclesiastical organi­sation; and most of the Churches have hitherto rested on these as their bases of union and bonds of fellowship, deeming it “more important to define God's mysteries in councils than to get His righteousness done in the world." It was brought as a charge against the old evangelicalism that its doctrinal preaching of the truths of Christianity had become so unreal and ineffective as to be without influence on the life; that the ethical side of the Gospel was ignored; that the acceptance of the ransom and substitutionary theory of the Atone­ment, without any moral effort to realise its spirit, was "fatal to progress in the upper path of goodness." This explains the appearance of the Broad Church party; but its destructive work is done. It is a characteristic feature of the new orthodoxy that it emphasizes the moral element in Christianity; that “its test of inspiration is not, like the old, a flawless and infallible statement, but a moral illumination; its account of atonement not" a legal satisfac­tion but a moral reconciliation; its limit of probation not in a term of years but in the possibilities of moral discipline."

While insisting on the fundamental evangelical truths, some of the best spirits in the West are trying to enforce these truths in such a way as to make them real to the individual soul-a quickening in­fluence in the thought and conduct of men. Creed there must always be, though short, simple and portable; but creed translated into character and life. In a word, the Christian ideas are not to be presented in a system, but in a Life. The essence of modern religious thought is that it is Christo-centric; its theology radiates from the personality of Christ-the centre and light of the whole Bible. Christianity is not a “body of Divinity"; it is Christ ­the living, reigning Christ. The present age is rediscovering Christ; going back to the sources; getting behind the Christologies to the Jesus of the Gos­pels. He is becoming more and more available, and His religion more intelli­gible to the moral nature. We are to put ourselves in the place of the first disciples; follow the Master whithersoever He goeth; come into living personal contact with Him, till our mind and heart and life are possessed with His Spirit. Christ Himself is the beginning and the end, the first and last word of Christianity.

The Social Gospel.

(5) And, lastly, this moral interest is essentially social. The growth of the democracy, the social and political up­heaval of recent years, the changed conditions of industrial life, are seen to be silent forces by which God is help­ing His Church to understand the Bible and Christianity better. There has been a too wilful shutting of the eyes to the fact that a widespread indifference to religion exists among a large number of the more intelligent men of the working-classes, and this is largely due to the unreality and in­efficiency of Christian ministrations; to the ignoring till quite recently of the social question; to the conservative attitude of the Church as “the custodian rather than the almoner of truth and grace"; to the feeling that religious institutions are “proud monuments of a past glory rather than living witnesses of a present power”. What has been the relation of the Church to social economics? How many ministers of the-Gospel have influenced and guided the social movements of our time?

These are questions that no doubt affect the West more than the East; but they are fast assuming a significance among us also, and in our ministrations will have to find a place. India presents a splendid field for social Christianity. No land has suffered more from social woes; and we need to pre­sent Christ to the earnest reformers of India as the Pioneer of Progress, as the Solver of all social and political problems. We need a statement also for' Indian Christians on the subjects of marriage, money, debt, jewels, intemperance, litigation, and many other weaknesses affecting the purity and power of domestic life.

Christians in the West, at any rate, are waking up to see that the term" religion" has been much too limited in its meaning, and its sphere of operation far too con­fined. Many matters affecting social life and well-being-education, politics, trade, art, science, and philosophy-have been largely untouched by religion. A few years ago it was never imagined that the land question in England and Ireland, or the principles regulating capital and labour, had a religious side. Religion has been claimed as exclusively the pro­perty of certain orthodox systems, and having to do with ecclesiastical specula­tions and observances. And what has been the consequence? Many other efforts of the human spirit, such as science and art, have been forced into a position of indifference or hostility; and, what is worse, we have now to reckon with the sullen and dangerous socialists and secularists of the day. It is high time to restore Christ's large conception of salvation - the idea of a "kingdom" or social state of righteousness and joy on earth, as distinguished from the narrow notion of res­cuing a few souls here and there from final shipwreck; insuring a few lives from eter­nal perdition. It is high time to make manifest all the world over that Christianity is in living sympathy with all that concerns human welfare, a great moral and social lever for setting the world upon its feet; that " Christ's blood has been sprinkled upon all things"; and that the elevation of society, the redemption of the whole 'of the earthly life, are to be in­cluded in the "the saving plan”. Nothing affecting humanity can be alien to the Christian.

The present age is offering a rare opportunity for rejoicing of these great beliefs. And, happily, there is in the “forward movement" in the West a broadening application of Christianity to life - the Christianising of social institutions, philanthropic enterprises, crusades against poverty, vices, cruelties, and oppressions such as no past age has witnessed. Christian brotherhood is the watch­word of the day, and Christ is becoming once again the "Good Samaritan," the "Great Physician." What are called, Institutional Churches "are springing up among the. Congregationalists of America ­churches that, recognising the duty of Christianity to the whole man, provide not only for preaching and worship, but for the administration of charity, and for the per­vading of the whole community with a healthy, Christian spirit. Instruction in socio­logy, led by Professor Tucker, of Andover, is given, to students in some of their theo­logical seminaries. When shall we have these things in India?

The Duty for Missionaries.

(6) And this brings me to that part of my subject which I must leave others to solve. What is our relation, as missionary teachers and workers, to these movements of modern, thought? We certainly hear very little about them, and probably some of us think very little about them. The old teachings and methods continue, and the difficulties do not grow less. Are we to ignore the new positions altogether, or to refrain from speaking about them? We may, of course, shut our ears and close our eyes to the doubts and inquiries of the day, but they will go on just the same. And it is becoming increasingly evident that we must be prepared either to answer clearly and convincingly questions con­cerning the Bible and related subjects, such as were not raised a few years ago, or to see many 1osing their hold of Christ and Christianity. Surely we are not at liberty thus to dispose of difficulties that are hin­dering the faith of many. We must sub­stitute certainty for doubt, and greatly simplify our creed. And the ascertained results of recent criticism and larger knowledge and sanctified thought will greatly help us. We cannot keep such results or any knowledge of the present day shut up in a box. Nor, if we could, ought we to desire it. All truth is God's truth, and the Church and the world will be gainers for knowing it. And it is far better that such subjects as we have been considering, allied as they are to, the most sacred things, should be learned from Christian teachers rather than from the columns of free thought journals. Should we not be all the better if we had received no false notions about the Bible in our childhood? We might have been spared many a shock to our religious faith if we had received a different kind of teaching. Let us not make the same mistake with others by giving them views of the Bible which they will have to unlearn in the future; let us try to save the young from the mental disturbances of later years.

If we accept any of the conclusions at which I have glanced, we must notice them; and if so, what shall we say about them in the family, in the Bible-class, in the theo­logical seminary, in the pulpit, to our native fellow-workers, to the people gener­ally? We should refer to them frankly and distinctly. Compromise, accommoda­tion, and suppression will not do. What is held should be held with intelligence and "without lurking doubt of its substantial truth." Let us refrain from teaching wrong notions about the Bible. Let us teach that it is inspired - as no other writings have been - ­the veritable Book of God, "able to make men wise unto salvation"; but let us not say that every word from cover to cover is from above; that all the books are equally inspired; that Ecclesiastes and Esther are on the same level as the Gospels; that Moses wrote every line of the Pentateuch, and David everyone of the Psalms; that Ezra and his colleagues, when they issued their revised code, did so with reverential regard to textual accuracy. Let us not convey the impression that the Bible must either be accepted as throughout infallible or not at all; that Christianity is bound up with the inerrancy of Scripture or with any theory of inspiration. If we do, we shall most certainly defeat our aim as teachers, and drive many to unbelief. Let us candidly admit difficulties and contradictions when they exist, and avoid forced explana­tions. They will often be due, as we have seen, to two versions of the same story, and the composite character of the text will be found to solve many problems. Let us not hesitate to say that fearless inquiry into the literary history of Scripture is going on, and that it need not be rationalistic, any more than clinging to traditional beliefs necessarily implies a religious spirit.

Shall we continue attempting to show that the story of creation in Genesis is to be read literally, and corres­ponds with the conclusions of modern geology, or distinctly admit that the Bible writers lived in an age when science was unknown; and that we have various accounts of creation and of the early stages of human history, current among Eastern nations, as they were pre­sented to the Hebrew mind, their inspirations, like the rest of Scripture, lying in the high ethical and spiritual truths they teach? Shall we continue to offer the ex­planation of the universe as furnished by orthodox theology, and teach that the world was created in six days, some six thousand years ago, &c.; that the old theory of special miraculous interpositions ac­counts for all phenomena; and not add, that to many minds, such as Bishop Temple's, a Christian theory of evolution "seems something more majestic"? Be­cause the genealogies in Genesis most distinctly limit the duration of man's existence on the earth to a few thousand years, shall we still maintain man's recent origin and fall, falsified though that has been by the discovery in all quarters of the globe of innumerable human implements and remains, belonging to remote geological ages? Or, in the interests of a theological system, shall we continue to contend for the universality of the deluge, and the preservation of pairs of all wild creatures in the ark, and treat the narrative of Eden or the story of Jonah as literal history, and not allow that we may reasonably and reverently conceive of the one as a moral allegory, setting forth a living fact of spiritual experience in rela­tion to temptation and sin, and the other as an "historico-parable of inestimable value in broadening the conceptions of men as to the mercy of God"? So with other narratives that surprise even children, such as the sun standing still at Gibeon, the miracles of Elisha in the Book of Kings, and the wonders of the Book of Daniel. Are we to be reckoned faithless if we confess that they may be poetical or legendary in their character, while inter­woven with genuine historical records? But far more important are the moral difficulties of the Old Testament. Shall we permit these to suggest to others false ideas of the character and providence of God, or adopt the only safe solution, and readily admit the defective moral standard - the mixture of good and evil in the men and women of those primitive ages?" Most certainly true and most evidently human:" all helping us to understand and trust better the working of the Divine Spirit in heathen lands as well as in the Christian Church at the present day, where we meet with so many imperfections, such feeble, glimmerings of the light that is from heaven. And in dealing with the New Testament and the many misconceptions of the Gospel shall we not hold that a man’s salvation does not and cannot depend on the view he takes of the Bible, still less on the theories which different Christians hold concerning it, nor on any particular view of the atonement, nor on belief on everlasting punishment, the question of future destiny being a mystery too vast to rest on the forces of an adjective or on any isolated text; but that the declaration of pardon through simple faith in Him who died, apart from all theories, is the perquisite keynote of preaching?

In short, shall we not simplify our mes­sage, impose fewer intellectual burdens, and try to make faith easier? To require at the outset the acceptance of creeds that took centuries to crystallise is only to bewilder; to start a convert in life with a full-blown theological system is the sure way to stunt his growth. All his days, instead of work­ing towards truth, he must needs work from it, and "a cheap theology often ends in a cheap life." Let us put life above dogma, the spirit above the letter. Let us rejoice to be - what in one word is the essence of modern religious thought - Christo-centric; and from there reach out to apprehend that wider conception of salvation - a Divine Economy that covers all the interests of social life. Let us deepen our faith in the never-ceasing presence and working of God's Spirit in the world in the past and in the present, believing that He may speak as truly and authoritatively to-day in the enlightened Christian consciousness as in the oracles of bygone ages.

But far be it from me to urge or even to suppose that all that I have ventured to bring forward should be accepted. Each one must judge in such matters for him­self. Probably some feel that they have no cause to trouble themselves about these subjects, or that the time for dealing~ with them here has not yet come. Others, again, would no doubt say that nothing has been advanced which has not already been accepted by them. However that may be, I cannot but think that the consideration of these questions has a special importance in a land where we are striving to present a new faith to a thoughtful and inquiring people. In this difficult but glorious work, have we not sometimes had to correct misconceptions that have been handed down, and that have impeded the cause of truth? And shall we make the work of our suc­cessors still more difficult by perpetuating certain errors, or by failing to recognise certain established facts?

At no period does the full-orbed charac­ter of truth appear. The Christianity of the Churches is always very far from being the Christianity of Christ; and the great need of every age, while sitting with docility at the feet of learning, is to repair to the old Gospel, to learn what the faith really was " which was once for all delivered unto the saints."

"Let knowledge grow from more to more,

But more of reverence in us dwell;

That mind and soul, according well,

May make one music as before,

But vaster”.

True robbery

Good name is man and woman

Is the immediate jewel of their souls;

Who steals my purse steals trash: tis' something,

nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

W Shakespeare

Condemn not, judge not: not to man

Is given his brothers' faults to scan;

One task is thine, and one alone­ –

To search out and subdue thine own

John Lennon was right - you reap what you sow

Sow with a generous hand;
Pause not for toil or pain;
Weary not through the heat of summer,
Weary not through the cold spring rain;
But wait till the autumn comes
For the sheaves of golden grain.

Sow, and look onward, upward,
Where the starry light appears;
Where, in spite of the cowards doubting,
Or your own heart's trembling fears,
You shall reap in joy the harvest
You have sown today in tears.

By A. A. Proctor.

Love

love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

Shakespeare's sonnet 116

To give and not to count the cost to toil and not to seek for rest...

Not what we give, but what we share –

For the gift without the giver is bare,

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,

Himself, his hungering neighbour and Me.

Longfellow

The power of the word

“Come, O Thou that hast the seven stars in Thy right hand,

appoint Thy chosen priests according to their order and courses of

old, to minister before Thee, and duly to dress and pour out the

consecrated oil into Thy holy and ever-burning lamps. Thou hast

sent out the spirit of prayer upon Thy servants over all the earth to

this effect, and stored up their voices as the sound of many waters

about Thy throne. . . . O perfect and accomplish Thy glorious

acts; for men may leave their works unfinished, but Thou art a

God ; Thy nature is perfection…..The times and seasons pass

along under Thy feet, to go and come at Thy bidding; and as

Thou didst dignify our fathers’ days with many revelations, above

all their foregoing ages since Thou tookest the flesh, so Thou canst

vouchsafe to us, though unworthy, as large a portion of Thy Spirit

as Thou pleasest; for who shall prejudice Thy all-governing will?

Seeing the power of Thy grace is not passed away with the primitive

times, as fond and faithless men imagine, but Thy Kingdom is now

at hand, and Thou art standing at the door, come forth out of Thy

royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth ; put on

the visible robes of Thy imperial majesty, take up that unlimited sceptre

which Thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed Thee; for now the

voice of Thy bride calls Thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed.”

Milton

Words I hope never to use, but I will I guess one day....

A PARTING. 

WITHOUT one bitter feeling let us part; — 

And for the years in which your love has shed 

A radiance like a glory round my head, 

I thank you, yes, I thank you from my heart. 

I thank you for the cherished hope of years, 

A starry future, dim and yet divine, 

Winging its way from Heaven to be mine. 

Laden with joy, and ignorant of tears. 

I thank you, yes, I thank you even more 

That my heart learnt not without love to live, 

But gave and gave, and still had more to give, 

From an abundant and exhaustless store. 

I thank you, and no grief is in these tears; 

I thank you, not in bitterness but truth, 

For the fair vision that adorned my youth 

And glorified so many happy years. 

Yet how much more I thank you that you tore 

At length the veil your hand had woven away, 

Which hid my idol was a thing of clay, 

And false the altar I had knelt before. 

I thank you that you taught me the stern truth, 

(None other could have told and I believed,) 

That vain had been my life, and I deceived, 

And wasted all the purpose of my youth. 

I thank you that your hand dashed down the shrine, 

Wherein my idol worship I had paid; 

Else had I never known a soul was made 

To serve and worship only the Divine. 

I thank you that the heart I cast away 

On such as you, though broken, bruised and crushed, 

Now that its fiery throbbing is all hushed, 

Upon a worthier altar I can lay. 

I thank you for the lesson that such love 

Is a perverting of God's royal right, 

That it is made but for the Infinite, 

And all too great to live except above. 

I thank you for a terrible awaking, 

And if reproach seemed hidden in my pain, 

And sorrow seemed to cry on your disdain, 

Know that my blessing lay in your forsaking. 

Farewell for ever now: — in peace we part; 

And should an idle vision of my tears 

Arise before your soul in after years — 

Remember that I thank you from my heart

A A Proctor 

Tributes to a great Englishman

THE LATE REV. C. F. ANDREWS

Tributes by Mr. Gandhi and

Dr. Rabindranath Tagore

THE passing of C. F. Andrews has drawn forth two remarkable testimonies in India, and in these days of tension between England and India it should be helpful to all Britishers to know what Mr. Gandhi and Dr. Rabindranath Tagore have to say about their mutual friend. Mr. Gandhi writes: -
“In my Opinion Charlie Andrews was one of the greatest and best of Englishmen. And because he was a good son of England he became also a son of India. And he did It all for the sake of humanity and for his Lord and Master Jesus Christ. I have not known a better man or better Christian than C. F. Andrews. India bestowed on him the title of Deenabandhu. He deserved it because he was, a true friend of the poor and downtrodden in all climes.”

Under the heading of “Andrews’ Legacy,” Dr. Rabindranath Tagore writes: —“Nobody probably knew Charlie Andrews as well as I did; ours was not a friendship between an Englishman and an Indian. It was an unbreakable bond between two seekers and servants. I want Englishmen, and Indians, whilst the memory of the death of this servant of England and India is still fresh, to give a thought to the legacy he has left for us both. There is no doubt about his love for England being equal to that of the tallest of Englishmen, nor can there be any doubt of his love for India being equal to that of the tallest of Indians. . . . At the present moment 1 do not wish to think of English misdeeds. They will be forgotten, but not one of the heroic deeds of Andrews will be forgotten so long as England and India live. It is possible, quite possible, for the best Englishmen and the best Indians to meet together and never to separate till they have evolved a formula acceptable to both. The legacy left by Andrews is worth the effort.”

So does the reconciling spirit of C. F. Andrews— the best loved white man in India—still live on.

Gandhi's comments

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages that persuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weened from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on oneself.
November 1919.

I feel thankful to God that, for years past, I have come to regard secrecy as a sin, more especially in politics. If we but realised the presence of God as witness to all we say and do, we would not have anything to conceal from anybody on Earth. For, we would not think on clean thoughts before our Maker, much less speak then. It is uncleaness that seeks secrecy and darkness. The tendency of human nature is to hide dirt, we do not want to see or touch dirty things, we want to put them out of sight. And so it must be with our speech. I would suggest that we should avoid even thinking thoughts we would hide from the world.
22nd December 1920.

The mental attitude is everything. Just as a prayer may be merely a mechanical intonation, as of a bird, so a fast may be a meer mechanical torture of the flesh. Such mechanical contribances are value less for the purpose intended. Again, just as a mechanical chant may result in training the voice, a mechanical fast may result in purifying the body. Neither will touch the soul within.
16th February 1922.

As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion overriding morality. Man for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent, and claim to have God on his side.
24th November 1921.

Poem of R Tagore

WITH THE SONG I AM A SONG

The morning’s skies do shimmer, wistful, dank,
With glistening dews and bright;
The casuarinas on the riverbank
All glimmer in the light.
Within my breast they seem
To press and throng and teem:
So that I know full well
The universe does dwell
On the shoreless sea of dream
A lotus gay and bright.

This truth I know, at last,-
I am a voice out of the vast
Upsurging Voice and with the Song
A song, a live that’s linked along
With Live, a light that flaming rends
Dark meshes of the night.

R. Tagore

The Future

From "Conservation and Progress."
By Sri Aurobindo Ghose

The future is a sphinx with two minds, and energy which offers itself and denies, gives itself and resists seeks to enthrone us and seeks to slay. But the conquest has to be attempted, the wager has to be accepted. We have to face the future’s offer of death as well as its offer of life, and it need not alarm us, for it is by constant death to our old names and forms that we shall live more vitally in greater and newer forms and names.
Go on we must; for if we do not, time itself will force us forward in spite of our fancied immobility. And this is the most pitiable and dangerous movement of all. For what can be more pitiable than to be borne helplessly forward clinging to the old that disintegrates in spite of our efforts and shrieking to the dead ghosts and dissolving fragments of the past to save us a live? And what can be more dangerous than to impose immobility on that which in its nature mobile? This means an increasing and horrible rottenness; it means an attempt to persist on as a putrid and stinking corps instead of a living and self-renewing energetic creature.

The greatest spirits are, therefore, those who have no fear of the future, who accept its challenge and its wager; who have that sublime trust in the God or Power that guides the world, that high audacity of the human soul to wrestle with the infinite and realise the impossible ,that wise and warrior confidence in its ultimate destiny, which mark the avatars and profits and great innovators and renovators.

Sri Aurobindo Ghose on Natural Value of Art

The work of purifying conduct through outward form and habitual and seemly regulation of expression, manner and action, is the lowest of the many surfaces which the artistic sense has done to humanity, and yet how wide is the field it covers and how important and indispensible have its workings been to the progress of civilisation!

The lie about war

DULCE ET DECORUM EST₁

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country

Patriots blood

William Cowper

William Cowper (pronounced Cooper), 1737-1800, English poet.

Cowper suffered attacks of insanity throughout his life, and sought either treatment or retirement in an asylum early in his life. There he became interested in the predestinarian theology of John Calvin, and became devoted to evangelical Christianity. In 1767 he moved to Olney, where he wrote The Olney Hymns with the evangelical preacher John Newton. The project was interrupted by another attack of insanity, during which he was convinced of his irrevocable damnation -- a sense he describes in his last important poem, "The Cast-Away."

In 1785 he published his most famous work, The Task, a long poem in six books. Wollstonecraft quotes from The Task in A Vindication, 5.50:

A patriot's blood,

Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed,

And for a time ensure, to his lov'd land,

The sweets of liberty and equal laws;

But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,

And win it with more pain.  Their blood is shed

In confirmation of the noblest claim--

To walk with God, to be divinely free,

To soar, and to anticipate the skies!

Yet few remember them.  They liv'd unknown

Till persecution dragg'd them into fame,

And chas'd them up to heav'n.  Their ashes flew

-- No marble tells us whither.  With their names

No bard embalms and sanctifies his song:

And history, so warm on meaner themes,

Is cold on this.  She execrates indeed

The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire,

But gives the glorious suff'rers little praise.

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,

And all are slaves beside.

-- The Task, "Winter Morning Walk," 714-33.

Start with ourselves

Condemn not, judge not: not to man

Is given his brothers' faults to scan;

One task is thine, and one alone­ –

To search out and subdue thine own.

Free love

ANTIGONE
Tis not my nature to join in hating, but in loving

Truth’s like a torch: the more ‘tis shook it shines.

The misfortunes of misfortunes are those that never happen. French Proverb

Nothing can be achieved without sacrifice

“The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.”

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Non violent ways towards peace and justice

When Jason in search of the Golden Fleece had to sail past the Syrens, he plugged the ears of his mariners with wax that they might not hear their enchant­ments and seductions. This was the attempt to inhibit the natural desire for pleasure; the forfeiture of a satisfaction they would rather have enjoyed in order to pass on to a better satisfaction farther off. But Ulysses had a higher way. When he sailed past, he had Orpheus on board, and commanded him to play up his best; and the enchanting strains of purer music made his crew deaf to the coarser songs of the Syrens. This is deliverance by displacement: not the inhibition of our desires, but the education of them; making the soul deaf to the lower voices by listening to the higher. Here, then, is the door of escape from these great temptations - a door that is open to each of us. "Cease to do evil” is not enough: we must "learn to do well"; and, indeed, we cannot cease from the one habit without super-inducing, or displacing it by, the other. If, therefore, the tedium and monotony of life begins to creep over your soul, and you are tempted to the foolish excitements of gambling or drink for relief, switch the mind into a higher direction. Generate an interest in something-in anything. Learn about other cultures, study anything that will occupy the mind with new interests in ideas of peace. Throw yourself into some piece of benevolent or religious work that will deliver you from lassitude, ennui, disappointment. Who cares for a disappointed or dissatisfied man?

Not even himself. He is a mere ghost, with no blood in the veins, no hope, no initiative, no future. If a man will deliver his soul from these hideous vices, it can only be as Perseus delivered Andromeda from the monster-by fighting it from above, poised in the air on wings that kept him above the plain upon which the monster grovelled. We must fight these monsters, sustained upon the wings of great ideals - ideals of sisterhood and brotherhood unity and harmony between religions and cultures. Long live peace!

Embrace friends from all over the world..human strength

Oh, call it by some better name

Oh, call it by some better name,

For Friendship sounds too cold,

While Love is now a worldly flame,

Whose shrine must be of gold;

And Passion, like the sun at noon,

That burns o'er all he sees,

Awhile as warm, will set as soon - ­

Then, call it none of these.

Imagine something purer far,

More free from stain of clay

Than Friendship, Love, or Passion are,

Yet human still as they:

And if thy lip, for love like this,

No mortal word can frame,

Go, ask of angels what it is,

And call it by that name!

THOMAS MOORE 1779-1852

Good overcomes evil

Goethe, “I never had an affliction which did not turn into a poem”.

"Per Crucem Ad Lucem." In English: "Through the Cross to Light."

The path of sorrow and that path alone

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

little things..with big outcomes

“Whenever an evil pleads with you that it is a little one, silence it," says Dr. W. ' Taylor, "with the suggestive lyric of the poet: ­

“It is the little rift within the lute,

That by and by will make the music mute,

And ever widening slowly silence all­

The little rift within the lover's lute:

Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit

That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all."

We get along

We get along

We get along like two

Houses on fire. We burn excitedly,

Swopping flames, crackling with joy-

­Let it always be so,

O let it always.

I'm tired of going round and round,

My tail in my mouth;

Every revolution makes me fear

I've always been wrong

About everything; but we get along

Like two houses alight

And spitting stars, our laughter

Is less of a secret,

More of a shout

Into the endless, flame-shot

Night.

SARA BERKELEY 1967­

Love poems

Last night

I sat with the one I love last night

She sang to me an olden strain;

In former times it woke delight,

Last night – but pain.

Last night we saw the stars arise,

But clouds soon dimmed the ether blue;

And when we sought each other’s eyes

Tears dimmed them too!

We paced along our favourite walk,

But paced in silence broken-hearted:

Of old we used to smile and talk;

Last night – we parted.

By Sean Keating

Platonic my eyes

I yearn
for the fullness
of your tongue
making me
burst forth
pleasure after pleasure
after dark.
soaking all my dreams. by Rita Ann Higgins 1953.

Life

Life and all it yields of joy or woe,

And woe and fear, believe me, aged friend,

Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love.

We are children who do but begin

The sweetness of life to win.

Laren.

No life

Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife

And all life not be purer and stronger thereby.

Meredith

“What is life, father?”

"A battle, my child,

Where the strongest hand may fail;

Where the wariest eyes may be beguiled,

And the stoutest heart may quail;

Where the foes are gathered on every hand,

And rest not day or night,

And the feeble little ones must stand

In the thickest of the fight."

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTOR.

Friendship as Love a story

One could not but be moved by the story of the soldier who asked his officer if he might go out into the ‘No man’s land’ between the trenches to bring in one of his comrades who lay grievously wounded. ‘You can go,’ said the officer, ‘but it’s not worth it. Your friend is probably killed, and you will throw your own life away.’ But the man went. Somehow he managed to get to his friend, hoist him on to his shoulder, and bring him back to the trenches. The two of them tumbled together and lay in the trench-bottom. The officer looked very tenderly on the would-be rescuer, and then he said, ‘I told you it wouldn’t be worth it. Your friend is dead and you are mortally wounded.’ ‘It was worth it though, sir.’ ‘How do you mean, “worth it” ? I tell you, your friend is dead.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ the boy answered, ‘but it was worth it, because when I got to him he said, “I knew you’d come!

From The Presence of Jesus Leslie Weatherhead the Epworth press London 1930:13

Love

‘Love is victorious in attack, and invulnerable in defence.’ Lao-Tse

Romain Rolland tells us why peace is to be treasured

Franz Werfel realises this ideal in poems thrilling with a mournful humanity, which takes part in the sacrament of misery and death:

We are bound together not only by our com­mon words and deeds, but still more by the dying glance, the last hours, the mortal anguish of the breaking heart. And whether you bow down be­fore the tyrant, or gaze trembling into the beloved’s countenance, or mark down your enemy with piti­less glance, think of the eye that will grow dim, of the failing breath, the parched lips and clenched hands, the final solitude, and the brow that grows moist in the last agony. . . . Be kind. . . . Ten­derness is wisdom, kindness is reason. . . We are strangers all upon this earth, and die but to be reunited.”

But the one German poet who has written the serenest and loftiest words, and preserved in the midst of this demoniacal war an attitude worthy of Goethe, is Hermann Hesse. He con­tinues to live at Berne, and, sheltered there from the moral contagion, he has deliberately kept aloof from the combat All will remember his noble article in the Neue Zurcher Zeitung of November 3rd, “0 Freunde, nicht diese Tone in which he implored the artists and thinkers of Europe “to save what little peace” might yet be saved, and not to join with their pens in destroying the future of Europe. Since then he has written some beautiful poems, one of which, an Invocation to Peace, is inspired with deep feeling and classical simplicity, and will find its way to many an oppressed heart.

Jecler hat’s gehabt

Keiner hat’s geschetzt.

Jeden hat der süsse Quell gelabt.

0 wie klingt der Name Friede jetzt

Klingt so fern und zag,

Klingt so tranenschwer,

Keiner Weiss und kennt den Tag,

J eder sehnt ihn vol Verlangen her.

(“Each one possessed it, but no one prized it. Like a cool spring it refreshed us all. What a sound the word Peace has for us now!

“Distant it sounds, and fearful, and heavy with tears. No one knows or can name the day for which all sigh with such longing.”)

A gem from that hero of Italy Mazzini

Duty Mazzini

"Christ’s every act was the visible representation of the faith. He preached, and around him stood apostles, who incarnated in their action the faith they had accepted. Be you such, and you will conquer. Preach duty to the classes about you, and fulfil, as far as in you lies your own. Preach virtue, sacrifice and love, and be yourself virtuous, loving and ready for self sacrifice and love. Speak your thoughts boldly, and make known your wants courageously, but without anger, without reaction, without threats". Mazzini 1862

A quote from Romain Rolland

The true man of culture is not he who makes of himself and his ideal the centre of the universe, but who looking around him sees, as in the sky the stream of the Milky Way, thousands of little flames which flow with his own; and who seeks neither to absorb them nor to impose upon them his own course, but to give himself the religious persuasion of their value and of the common source of the fire by which all alike are fed. Intelligence of the mind is nothing without that of the heart. It is nothing also without good sense and humour—good sense which shows to every people and to every being their place in the universe—and humour which is the critic of misguided reason, the soldier who, following the chariot to the Capitol, reminds Caesar in his hour of triumph that he is bald.

Romain Rolland

Sacrifice

“The sense

Sees greatness only in the sensuous greatness:

Science in that sees little: Faith sees naught:

The small, the vast, are tricks of earthly vision.

To God, that omnipresent All-in-each,

Nothing is small, is far……………

If earth be small, likelier it seems that love,

Compassionate most and condescending most

To sorrow’s nadir depths, should choose that earth

For love’s chief triumph, missioning thence her gift

Even to the utmost zenith.”

Picture of Sewah

This is a picture taken at a wedding.

Welcome to my first posting

I have thought very hard about this and decided to take the plunge. Hope you will enjoy my discoveries about peace. Tagore the poem inspires me as to where the power of life lies, certainly not in might. Here are two examples:-

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that Thy living touch is upon all my limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that Thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that Thou hast Thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.

And it shall be my endeavour to reveal Thee in my actions, knowing it is Thy power gives me strength to act.

another,

Here is Thy footstool and there rest Thy feet where live the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

When I try to bow to Thee, my obeisance cannot reach down to the depth where Thy feet rest among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

Pride can never approach to where Thou walkest in the clothes of the humble among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

My heart can never find its way to where Thou keepest company with the companionless among the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost.

R Tagore