Frustrated Youth
SIR,—May I ask the authoress of the touching article printed in the Spectator of December 30th to consider the following words taken 'from a memoir of a friend of mine who died in 1918 ? " His sense of the burden and horror of 'the struggle was as great as that of any of his brethren. Yet he does not seem to have been convinced that the war had added any new perplexities to faith. Probably this was due to the historical temper of his mind. He knew that the world had experienced similar catastrophes before that the records of humanity were full of cruelty, oppression, treachery, greed and innocent suffering. He had long ago faced the difficulties which such things present to the believer in the God and Father of Jesus Christ: and he found nothing that was
novel in the terrors of this latest strife. I think that he was puzzled to understand how men of historical knowledge and imagination should have their faith destroyed by being required to face in their own time such facts of human sin and anguish as they had always known to be part of the story of mankind."
Surely the distinction which she draws between Christianity as a " living faith " and as a " philosophy which our ancestors' zeal and faith has handed down to us" is a false one. The Church of today may have its faiths, but it is not concerned merely with " the vision of pearly gates and the mumblings of antique fictions." By its philosophy of life it teaches its members to " see man in the light of eternity."—Yours
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