" TAKE SIDES WITH HUMANITY
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—" Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors "— nothing goes more against the grain of human nature than to fulfil this petition of the pattern prayer. Whether between individuals or between nations, it requires a miracle of grace to practise mutual forgiveness. Yet such is the miracle which is indispensable if there is to be world recovery.
Sir Walter Layton, who was described by his introducer as " a sane man in a mad world," when he spoke last week at the dinner of the Eighty Club, said that a moratorium is no good, because it means waiting and prolonged suspense. " My conclusion on reparations is this, that it is essential that there should be an agreement now which will enable reconstruction to begin again because we simply cannot wait for twelve months. It would be highly desirable if the whole thing were wiped out, because of the removing of a long-drawn-out source of irritation and a sense of war psychology."
This candid recognition of the problem as fundamentally a spiritual one is in agreement with the testimony of the preacher at St. Bride's (the journalists' church) on the same day last week—that the great need in these days is that we should all learn to " let this mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus." " The one thing that can save the world from disaster is a return to simple faith and simple ways and an acceptance of the eternal power of God to change the hehrts of men and of nations. We do not hear much about conversion in these days, the word for some of us savours of cant and people are shy of using it, and yet conversion on a colossal scale is the one real hope of the world. to-day."—I am, Sir, &e., R. MERCER WILSON.
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