NATIONAL FAITH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 90, 5 February 1947, Page 4

NATIONAL FAITH

HUMANITY’S FUTURE APPEAL BY ADMIRAL BYRD Befort leaving Washington by air to take command of the American Task Force in the Antarctic, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd appealed to his country “to find that re-direc-tion in human nature that can make the atomic age an age men will hail with gratitude, not with fright. “It is about six years since I returned from my last trip to the Antarctic,” said Admiral Byrd in a statement issued from the United States Navy Department. “Often amid crash and cruelty on battle fronts or the bitter tension of struggle on the industrial fronts I have wished participants would go to the end of the world and look from that perspective on the petty divisions that may wreck our planet. “On my former visit to the Antarctic continent I spent a period of several months alone during the dark night. During that time I came to the conclusion that world organisation for peace was essential for humanity’s future. Now the United Nations Organisation has been created it deserves our fullest support, but it is only too obvious that machinery depends on the men who run it and those they represent. “There are various philosophies abroad in the world today which aim to cure the world’s ills by a rearrangement of the existing order. But we need a new factor—a new spirit in human nature itself. Therefore we should give special priority to any agency which shows promise on a world scale of bringing this about. A world force which, from my personal observation, I believe is building an organic life within and between the United Nations is moral Re-Armament. It is making the old truths of Christianity militant in this ideological era. It is the fight of every man who wants to save freedom.

“Not everyone can spend five months alone, but each can spend at least five minutes a day to allow the pressure of events and self concern to give way to the guidance of God. In this way the ordinary man and the statesman can supply the inspired thinking that will fulfil the aspirations of democracy. The rediscovery of our national faith is more important than anything . I may find on these new explorations in the Antarctic.”