A CHRISTIAN FRONT
SIR,—As you say in your issue of December 27th, the points adopted by the Anglican and Catholic and Free Church leaders in The Times letter of December 21st, on the foundations of peace, represent a united Christian lead that has long been awaited. It is all the more .to be hoped for, accordingly, that the lead will be widely and deeply followed up in this country. The United States papers gave it front-page publicity. We reprinted the letter immediately as a leaflet, and sent a copy to all our members on Christmas Eve, with a printed slip asking them to write to their M.P.s urging them to support this lead when the Government's statement of " War and Peace Aims " comes up in the Commons; and to write to the Foreign Secretary saying how long this united lead has been prayed for.
The time is certainly ripe for a " Christian Front " and the call for it had been gathering volume some time before the appearance of The Times letter. There are the annual conferences, sponsored by the Archbishop of York ; there is the Bishop of Chichester's Penguin Special on Christianity and World Order (published on November 5th); there is the correspondence on Peace Aims running in your own columns at this moment, and in the Church Times and the Guardian; there is the recent announcement of an interdenominational statement on a Christian Britain; there is the letter of Michael de in Bedoyere (editor of the Catholic Herald) in the New Statesman of Decem- ber 14th; and there is the new Benedictine foundation in this country recently noted in the Press. To all these The Times letter comes as a climax. But we must regard it rather as a first climax—as a beginning. The co-signatories to The Times letter expect their lead to be taken up. Cardinal Hinsley himself founded the Sword of the Spirit Movement for the express purpose of uniting " Christians and men of good will " in a joint effort for the establishment of Christian and natural principles during _and after the war. " Until we know what the public thinks of our joint declaration," said the Free Church Moderator, " we cannot indicate what our next step will be." What then, are we, as
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