UP TO THE ELDERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1940, Page 6

UP TO THE ELDERS

KEY POSITION OF COUNTRY. Power lies in the hands of the fiftyplus, writes the Rev Frank R. Hancock in lhe "Christian Pacifist." And the tragedy is that, when the initiative falls to us. at fifty, we are spiritually incapable of going forward to possess what is still the Land of Promise. We older men and women hold al last lhe key positions in Business. State and Church. Our seniors arc- dying or retiring. The levers at long last are coming into our hands — those levers that we have so long waited I'or. that, we might use them to better purpose. For 40 years we *■ have striven and criticised, and waited. And now. think of ill ' The premier positions, and all the power for the next 20 years, are in our hands —the hands of the fifty-plus! It is God's opportunity —in us—at last! It is a false hope, this deferring of the Kingdom always to the next, generation. which. like tomorrow, never comes. "We looked will) confidence to them," says l*)r Raven, "to bring to birth a now way of living." There have been tens of thousands of generations. What now property is it with, which our immediate successors have been miraculously endowed, that they will succeed where we and all our ancestors have failed? No. there is only one solution. Some generation—not of youth—but of Elders, has got to bo saved —somehow. Why not a great effort now to save Dr Raven's and mine? It is the only one in which wo can ever be effective —the only one of which we can make sure. Youth can never rebuild this sub-Christian world, because Youth never has Power. Can we Elders do it?