THE CONFLICT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 43, 22 April 1942, Page 2

THE CONFLICT

GREATEST OF ALL TIMES "We are witnessing, or rather Ave are ail parties paling in, perhaps the greatest struggle ever Avaged I'oir the hou! of mankind. The Avar of nrmie.; and navies and air forces is a product and a reflection of spiri Jfial conflict, and though the issue of the war matters beyond all telling, yet the final Avord lies not a\ itli the high explosives but with spiritual and moral choices. Tn the most literal sense it is a choi between Christ or chaos, between Christianity and hell upon earth that outdoes in ghastliness the most lurid pictures of a hell hereafter that thelegians ever painted. Probably never in all her long history has the Christian Church facet! such a challenge. The athesims and anti-Cristian faiths of the modern world are more menacing by far than the ancient faiths ol the East in which can often be found evidences of the Avorking of that God who has not left Himself without a Avitness wherever men sincerely seek Him. But these modern faiths deny God and blaspheme His temples in the human soul. They nre making ruthless assaults on all forms of organised religion. "In such a situation the Church should be at her most virile and efficient, so organising her life as to be able to bring her maximum poavp,r to bear Avhere it is most needed." —The Rev. Hugh Martin, in "Christian Re-union."