"IT’S DIFFERENT ON THE SPOT"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 156, 19 June 1942, Page 10

"IT’S DIFFERENT ON THE SPOT"

Men of N.Z.E.F. Take Keen Interest In Bible History

HILE men and women up and down New Zealand are at present engaged in the Campaign for Christian Order, and are trying to relate their ideas on religion to the state of the world to-day in order to make Christian principles the basis for the peace that is to come, it is possible that our troops, thousands of miles away in the Middle East are in their own way taking an even keener interest in much the same things.. The effect on soldiers of being actually on the spot where the Christian religion was born, is vividly described in a recent letter home from a member of the National Broadcasting Service who is now a soldier in the Middle East. Describing their journey through Palestine, he writes: "We skirted the foot of Mount Tabor, where the Sermon on the Mount was delivered, and knew we were within a few miles of Nazareth, although unfortunately our road did not take us through the town. Many were the discussions on Biblical history. Everybody was interested, but

regrettably rusty. Being on the spot makes a great difference. As a general rule, people are very reserved and unwilling to discuss matters of religion in open talk. On the spot, all that is changed. It passes from private religion to actual historical fact. We are here. These things happened here. They are open for discussion and argument. We want to know how the Holy Family travelled to Egypt and back over those hundreds of miles of desert, how they carried water and provided shelter for themselves, how they procured food on the journey. These things assume a practical interest when you know the country and are aware by personal experience of its difficulties. We begin to see how much in involved in such a journey, covered in so few. words, ‘so they journeyed forth into Egypt’.... "We have decided that they must have joined camel caravans which took these routes for trading purposes. These ideas are probably nothing new to students and investigators, but we are just finding things out for ourselves, and finding it a most interesting process. Previously it was uncommon to see a chap reading the Bible without first trying to achieve some privacy, but now that frequently happens, and like as not, there’s another chap looking over his shoulder and saying, ‘There you are! I told you sol’ " "Just Like Marlborough" The writer goes on to describe the troops’ journey into the Galilee Mountains, and "the first sight of the Sea of Galilee, seemingly miles below, set like a@ mirror in the mountains. It looked exactly like the Sounds, the calm, nar-

row water surrounded and compressed by high, treeless hills . ... the road hanging to the hillside like the Government Track, I thought then that if I were dumped in the centre of the lake, away from local colour, I would swear I was in Marlborough. Fishing boats of ancient pattern were out on the sea, and fish for sale on the shore, What a picture to take one back a couple of thousand years, to make one dig in the recesses of memory for pictures formed in Sunday-school days that they might be corrected and polished up! Fishers of men, loaves and fishes, walking on the water-all the references of the Sea of Galilee that previously formed such a dim impression came up in high relief, coming to life in our imaginations, stirred by the historic locality." Food For Thought Later: "We are not long returned from one of the Padre’s readings, which we again found to be of the greatest interest: Pages 146-148 of H. V. Morton’s ‘In the Steps of the Master.’ So strange, after this afternoon’s comment of mine of the impressions made by being on the spot, that this factor should be so frequently stressed in Morton’s pages ... The lecture hut was packed to-night, another point to support my statement of the great general interest in the places; and the free and open discussions of Biblical matters among a crowd of men mostly unknown to one another, and not met for the avowed purpose of such a discussion would be amazing, even impossible, under other circumstances. There is food for thought in this."