Letters to the Editor
Peace on Earth? Dr. R. L. Kuching
English in South-East Asia Vernon Bartlett. Lee Siew Yee
Anglican Spring Cleaning Dr. Alec Vidler Eats and Belles Irving Wardle Pay As You View P. M. T. Sheldon-Williams Black and White in Rhodesia Christopher Consett Isis and The Isis Angus Macintyre
Appendicitis Denis Browne
Canal Boatmen John Matthews Nights of Bath 14'aveney Girvan Sabbatarianism Rev. J. S. MacArthur State Pubs , J. M. L. North `The Death of 2nd Lieut. Browne' J. M. Bryan
PEACE ON EARTH?
SIR,--In a letter published by the Spectator on Octo- ber 31, 1952, it was argued that it is just as much the duty of every man and woman to take exactly the same active part in making peace as they would take in war. Since then, the efforts of the different govern- ments to make peace (when they were not actually fighting) make it pretty certain that there will never be any peace unless the peoples make it themselves; and, further, that if they do not set about it very soon there will certainly be more wars and probably another world war. But the people themsehies, the individual men and women, will never make the necessary effort and the necessary sacrifices unless they can be roused from their present apathy by the same sort of leadership that won the world wars. The obvious people to lead the country in peace- making are the bishops, but for some years now they seem to have been quite unable to make up their minds whether there can now be any hope of peace on earth. The modern view seems to be that 'In the song of the angels on the first Christmas night there is no promise of universal peace, but, as our Revised Version translates it, "on earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased," Nowhere in the New Testament do we find a picture of peace among the nations.' (In an Age of Revolution, by Cyril Garbett, P. 289.) And the Archbishop quoted the statement that 'the hope of peace among the peoples is alien to the New Testament.
But the people of this country have been living for so long under such a mounting threat of un- imaginable horrors that their hearts are sick and their minds clouded and there must be a great many who have wondered anxiously whether thq statement that the hope of peace is 'alien' to the New Testament means that there is no hope of peace in the words 'Blessed are the peacemakers. . . If there is no hope at all of peace in the New Testament it is extremely difficult to see what the followers of Arch- bishop Garbett can have in mind when they pray : 'Give peace in our time, 0 Lord.' He certainly did not make it clear himself and it would therefore be a very great help if the Lambeth Conference would examine the last chapter of In an Age of Revolution and publish a report.—Yours faithfully, Wetherby, Yorks • R. L. KITCHING
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