NATIONALISM AND GOD [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sta,—In your leading article " Nationalism and God " in your issue of October 22nd, based upon the Provost of Eton's recent letter to The Times, you refer to the desirability of co-operation among Christian people of different denominations " in pro- claiming the truth that as the Nation is greater than the indi- vidual, so humanity is greater than the Nation " : and you add that " in this country at least such a gospel would fall on no deaf ears."
May I draw your attention to a statement issued in December, 1935, over the signatures of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, as the outcome of an agreement reached by leading repre- sentatives of various Chiistian communions, not in this country only but throughout Europe? This statement was read during the course of Divine Worship in most of the Parish Churches Throughout England and must therefore have reached the ears of a large audience. To what extent it fell on deaf ears it is impossible to say. My point is that the truth to which you so rightly draw attention has been proclaimed in no uncertain tones by clergy and ministers of religion for many years past. The difficulty is to " get it across " to those who never enter a place of worship and who stand outside saying : Why doesn't the Church give a lead ?
Most of the clergy from Archbishops downwards have done their utmost to give a lead in the direction that you desiderate. Now it is the turn of the Christian laity to speak out.
" I am willing to die for my country, but 1 shall never hate the Japanese. I am as loyal as any man in China : but my first loyalty is to Christ and His universal Kingdom." These words were said to a friend of Mine in China a week or two ago by a Chinese Christian student. They are not the words of an unpractical visionary—they are the expression of a spirit without which civilisation itself must, sooner or later, inevitably perish.
Let us hope that other Christian laymen will follow the example of the Provost of Eton and of that Chinese student, and proclaim the truth as they see it, before it is too late.—
House of Commons. Chaplain to the Speaker.
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