This column originally appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on April 20, 1940.
Little Clarence was taking his first toddling steps, and the whole family of parents and one pair of grandparents were watching with suspended breath. The war, the election, the misdeeds of the other party were forgotten.
Little Clarence made the perilous journey 鈥� 10 steps in all 鈥� and was received with cheers. If the family had been satisfied with a modest victory they would have encouraged little Clarence to call it a day, but families are greedy for thrills, and the baby was urged to take more steps. At last, tired and excited, little Clarence swerved from his course, tripped on the rug and lay howling in defeat.
Grandma was the first to pick him up, with many twitterings of sympathy 鈥� 鈥淏ad old rug!鈥� she cried, slapping her hand on it, 鈥淚 will beat the rug for tripping Clarence.鈥�
Then everyone took a kick at the rug, and Clarence did the same, hushing his cries in the new excitement of having something to kick, something to blame!
So little Clarence got his first lesson in the art of blaming someone else for his own mistakes.
Hitler, knowing how essential it is to give people something to kick, picked on the Jews. They were a wealthy minority. They could be kicked with profit. Kicking something, or somebody, is a robust exercise which builds energy into the brutal instincts. Even as good a woman as Clarence鈥檚 grandmother is deceived by it.
Now, of course, we can all see how horrible this is, when we contemplate the degeneration of Germany 鈥� but it is well for us to look carefully into our own hearts.
If Grandma has her way, Clarence will be adept at making excuses for himself as he grows up. When he comes in from school with muddy clothes it will not be his fault 鈥� some bad boy pushed him into a puddle! If he does not do well in school it will be because the teacher has a spite at him!
If we could suddenly and miraculously make parents and teachers wise we could produce, in one generation, a courageous, truthful people. God gave us that great privilege when he ordained that some die and others are born. Every child begins life with a clean page. But his elders soon write on it in their blundering way, and the age-old tragedy begins!
But we must not despair, even though war has come upon us. Man still has his destiny in his own hands. Every moment in our lives is a fresh beginning. Whatever it is we are fighting for, now is the time to see about getting it.
The fact that we have failed in the past must not deter us. In 1918, we had a chance to build a new world. We did not do it. But we must not let that blacken our hearts or discourage us. We do not need to bungle this time.
Saint Paul was not always a saint. He did much evil in his time. But on the road to Damascus he was arrested by a heavenly light, and the voice of Christ. He was given three days of darkness and silence to adjust himself. The things he thought were right suddenly became wrong, and Saul the persecutor became Paul the evangelist, the missionary, with a story to tell which would redeem the world.
And the glorious fact stands out like a beacon in a dark night that Paul lost no time bemoaning his past sin. He began at once his new life. A smaller man would have put on a hair shirt, gone into a monastery, fasted and prayed and cried his heart out, while the world went on its wicked way. To Paul, the plan was clear.
The trouble with us is that we are afraid of each other, so we build up little fences, behind which we take refuge 鈥� usually little fences of petty hatreds. We allow our spites to unite us more than our loyalties. We think we must have a pack to run with.
At heart we are sound. But superficially we are cowardly and trifling. We are afraid to be in earnest.
We must begin to think creatively. We must see we are not merely individuals. We are part of an Empire, and that Empire is the one which is standing up to the forces of evil. To be worthy of our high calling we have to strip away our little meannesses, our affectations, our insincerities. We have to do this. It is no longer optional. If our civilization does not change from within, it will be altered by outside forces.
There are only two ways to change the world. The way of the Gospel, the way of the heart, the way of freemen who choose the right; or the ugly, brutal way that Hitler practices. When he visited Warsaw and looked with an eye as cold as the eye of a lizard on the smoking ruins, under which lay the broken bodies of his victims, he said he wished all nations of Europe could see what he was looking at. 鈥淭hen,鈥� he said, 鈥渢hey would know what resistance to me means!鈥�
This spirit, that brutal spirit, has to be overcome. To defeat it in war is the first step this time, but only the first step. Our way of blaming others, our way of pushing off disagreeable things, our way of doing the conventional thing, though we know it has in it the seeds of decay; our petty spites and prejudices have to go if we are to complete the task. We must rise to the challenge of this great struggle if we are going to survive as a free people 鈥� and if the world is to have peace.
We must throw our full weight into the second phase of building a new world on the foundation of the Golden Rule.
When Christ talked of peace he made it plain that he did not consider peace as mere cessation of war. He did not say, 鈥淏lessed are the peaceable.鈥� He said, 鈥淏lessed are the peacemakers.鈥�
It is not enough to be amiable and pleasant in pursuit of peace. We cannot bring peace by eating olives and sandwiches in a good cause, or by giving our old clothes and discarded books, or our spare time, or signing petitions 鈥� worthy as all these contributions are.
This time, we have to give everything and risk everything.
