AMERICAN QUAKERS’ CALL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 December 1941, Page 4

AMERICAN QUAKERS’ CALL

TO PERSONS OF GOODWILL. “A Call to Persons of Goodwill” has been issued by the American Friends’ Service Committee, which says:—Some day this unspeakable w r ar will end and the rebuilding of the world, already being planned, will occupy the focus of our minds. Even now in the midst of the din and chaos, of starvation, death and disaster, the eternal verities of life and the principles which underlie any order of society that can be called good, need to be affirmed and kept alive. It is no time now for shallow contentions or surface arguments. It is only out of the deeps that one dares to raise Ins voice to challenge this way of life which is crucifying humanity. The time has come for those who see clearly what is happening to the world, who feel its present tragedy, and who, at the same time, have a firm grasp of the divine possibilities of this human life of ours, to speak a sober, solemn word in this hour of crisis. There is a serene Spirit of truth and wisdom, invisible, but none the less real, calling to us above the tumult to exert every effort of ours, however feeble, to stop the immoral and inhuman processes sweeping across the world, and to release the recreative forces of life and light and love. Much more important than defending democracy by bombing aeroplanes and tanks and totalitarian methods is the preservation of that unique human spirit out of which both democracy and all that is precious to civilisation sprung and have flourished. The obstacles to'immediate efforts for peace are not love of war, but the mistaken reliance on force and violence to crush counter-force, and the failure to grasp the nature and meaning of peace. Peace is not a static condition, to be attained after the defeat of those who disturb it. On the contrary, peace is a dynamic method, by which to remove injustices, to accomplish necessary readjustments, and to remedy, instead of aggravating, the evils that have been inflicted on the world by military aggression.