Tárogató, 1943-1944 (6. évfolyam, 3-12. szám)
1944-04-01 / 10. szám
TÁROGATÓ MEDITATION John 10:9. Once again we stand at the door of the year. The grim black-out period is passing and brighter days are dawning. We may have far to travel in the wilderness even yet, but we march in the light of a rising sun. The door is the link between the street and the sanctum. In the early days of the war we had a poster which read, ‘Open your door to the passer-by, he needs shelter’. There are always pilgrims whose loneliness, sorrow and joy we ought to share. We can if our door be open. In another sense we ought on the threshold of this new year to shut the door that we might know the peace of the sanctum. We should bar admittance to ancient spite, to condoned sin and stupid pride, for there are things which God has to say to us that He cannot say at an open door. He must get into our hearts if we are to have a happy new year. Let us welcome life’s opportunities and shut out life’s shame, so shall we find fellowship and peace. And let us not forget the words of our Lord: “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” SCIENCE HEALS When lives are being snuffed out daily in this global war, it is comforting to turn aside and look at some of the things which are being done to save and prolong life. Behind the closed doors of laboratories, earnest young scientists are experimenting day and night, perfecting discoveries for the healing of humanity. Have ,you ever eaten a slice of green bread? Oh, yes, there is such a thing, and the baker did not accidentally tip a can of green paint into the dought either. The bread has merely been touched up wit a sprinkling of the new dehydrated and powdered grass. This grass is now produced in quantities in British Columbia to fortify the feed of animals. The vitamin content has 13 been found to prevent anaemia in little pigs, and far-seeing housewives are now experimenting with it in their bread, working on the theory that if it is valuable to little animals why not to little and big humans as well? Loaves are green but the grass is tasteless, and children take to it quite readily, thereby supplying themselves with muchneeded vitamins, proteins and minerals. In days to come it may not sound absurd to hear someone say, “Have you had your grass today?” Following the last war, a deadful epidemic of flu swept the world carrying off many lives. Scientists and doctors are now endeavouring to prevent such another catastrophe. They have traced the flu to a virus which enters the blood. If one’s resistance is high, one can throw off the germ but, if not, one contracts the disease. Most of the deaths are caused by complications such as pneumonia and meningitis, and in order to combat these doctors now administer the germ killing sulfa drugs if the fever lasts more than three days. A germ-killing lamp has also been discovered which can be set up wherever indoor crowds gather—in scchools, churches and theatres. Those atom-smashing scientists have an antiinfluenza gun which fires “shells”—special kinds of electrons. These scientific shells work silently and invisibly among crowds, wiping out airborne disease germs. Recently an antiinfluenza vaccien appeared, and so far it has been quite successful. Forty-five boys were given this vaccine. Then they breathed influenza virus vapour, and only one caught the flu. Science will continue its discovering and testing until they finally conquer this disease. —“Onward. RELIGION VERSUS DICTATORSHIP As is often the case with lesser things the understanding of democracy by its friends is being enhanced today through the violent animosities of its foes. Sometimes it would seem as if fascists were more aware of the vital connection between Christianity ond democracy than are the citizens of the free democracies. The reason for the opposition which totalitarians make to both Judaism and Christianity ought not to be hard to understand. These faiths—one in their origin and one in their basic reading of human destiny—asert that human personality is sacred, that man— OUR ENGLISH SECTION.
