THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 261, 3 August 1942, Page 4

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments —Reflections Intercession. O Thou Who art the King eternal, hasten the time of Thy Kingdom upon the earth and draw the whole world of men into willing obedience to Thy rule. Build Thou the old wastes, and repair the desolations war has wrought that ■the people may rejoice and the world be made glad through accept- . ante of Thy law. Amen.

“They cannot beat us.”—Draza Mih ailovich, Jugoslav leader’.

‘•No material progress, even though it takes shapes we cannot now conceive, or however it may expand the faculties of .man, can bring comfort to the soul. Projects undreamed of by past generations will absorb our immediate descendants; forces terrific and devastating will be in their hands; comforts, activities, amenities, pleasure, will crowd upon them, but their hearts will ache, their lives will be barren, if they have not a vision above material things. There never was a time when the hope of immortality and the disdain of earthly power and achievement was more necessary for the safety of the children of .men.” —Mr. Winston Churchill, in an article written previous to the war.

“The fruit of this war must be a Democracy of States in which Freedom and Equality have reached a new creative balance. I believe that the new" and more just order of peoples can only be erected on this ideological basis, the commonwealth which we propose in opposition to Hitler’s eerie misanthropical New Order based on the maniacal arrogance of one single race. It may be a Utopia, this new and better world, this “City of Man,” as my friends and I have called it and as we try to prepare it spiritually. But what would man be without Utopia? He must always aim at the unattainable, in order to realize the attainable and to make sr least one step forward.”—Thomas Mann, German author, in the “Sunday Chronicle.”

“The life of a nation depends on the life of the home. There can be no doubt that it is in the home that the nation learns how to live together. It is the building-place of character which is the heart of national morale. If homes fail the nation fails. Family life can make a nation great. To defend Australia we need sound homes, where the family all pull together and help each other to give of their liest. The spirit that pervades such homes will be taken by these people into their jobs. Much depends upon the fathers knowing how to unite their families, and upon the mothers teaching their children responsibility, faith and discipline, all of which help to build the nation’s character.” —Sir Frank Beaurepaire. Lord Mayor of Melbourne.

“The quite simple truth is that If we will not defend the rights of others we must, each of us, drift into A situation in which it becomes impossible to defend our own rights. If each will defend only himself then the vast mass of men, civilization as a. whole, can be destroyed in detail, picked off one by one, by some gang of violent and evil men. Which is what has been happening over so much of the earth. We must hang together for the defence cf right as such or become the helpless victim, of evil violence. Those who desire to live under the dominion of right, law, freedom, must accept the the obligation to help in the defence of those things.”—Sir Norman Angell, Nobel Peace Prize winner.

“The failure in India is not to be set down to any perversity, British or Indian,” states the ‘‘Birmingham Post.” “It is due to causes outside the control of imperfect humanity—fundamentally, to the fact that India is not yet ready for the freedom she desires. The draft British (plan was at once generous because it offered India full Dominion status. It was testing because it asked of India an act of faith, a difficult act of faith—faith of Hindu in Moslem and of Moslem in Hindu to work for India’s common good. It was testing because it asked parties to think in terms of present rather than future. One is not reproaching Indian parties by saying that they did not stand up to the test. That is a plain statement of fact. The last communications from Moslem League and Congress show clearly that each was afraid the other would use the wartime interim settlement to prejudice the permanent peace-time Constitution ; and that neither trusted the .States to work in full harmony with British India in the new Indian Union. This mutual mistrust- is shown most clearly in the final Congress demands.”

“Dife is a drama, mankind a company of actors, an'd the spinning planet we inhabit a vast stage, is an unusually faithful interpretation of human experience. We can, in fact, feel ourselves dramatically alive, playing our parts in the concerted enactment of a closely woven plot. It is of help in living to feel ourselves alive in this way; it enables us constantly to be aware of the other actors on the stage, to interpret our parts in relation to the whole, to realize the paradox that no single part makes sense except in its integration with that of the others. We know that the great actor gives a seemingly effortless performance, but only because of tireless effort and practice. .Such knowledge cheers us in the stress of moral struggle, for it is no less true of the great characters of life. We are conversant with a score of facts about the theatre which make the simile remarkably close. In every play, for instance, there are times when the part of any particular actor is subordinate to the rest, others when he has to take the centre of the stage. There are times in human living when our turn comes to act decisively. There are cues to be taken in daily living as there arc on the stage.”—Mr. Joseph McCulloch, in "The Divine Drama.” * * A Bulwark. But when i think of thee, ami what thou art, Verily in the bottom of my heart Of those untilial fears I am ashamed. But dearly must we prize thee; we who find In thee a bulwark for the cause of men; And I by my affection was beguiled. What wonder if a poet now and then, Among the many movements of his mind. Belt for thee as a lover or a child? —“Wordsworth’s .Sonnets: 18021806.”