Tárogató, 1943-1944 (6. évfolyam, 3-12. szám)
1944-04-01 / 10. szám
14 T A R O G A TÓ as man—has certain inalienable rights. This the totalitarians vehemently deny. These faiths assert that the giver of those sacred rights was the Creator who “made man in his own image and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The totalitarians deny the existence of a universal-creator who is above all races, nations and rulers. These faiths assert that all men are brothers in the one family of God. The totalitarians want nothing to do with universal brotherhood and are intent upon destroying the very concept. These faiths assert that there is a fundamental moral law in the universe which was ordained by the will of God and which represents his universal and unchanging purpose. Totalitarians despise any such view and set up as the final law the arbitrary will of the dictator who is supposed to be above criticism, himself the supreme moral judge of all things. Judaism and Christianity believe that force is never its own justification and that when it is used it must be under the control of law and employed in a cause that is just. Totalitarians assert that the power to use force is the only justification required for its employment. Judaism and Christianity see man the sinner as the subject of God’s mercy requiring redemption that he may rise into newness of life from his error and wrong-doing. The Nazis say only a religion of cowards and weaklings could think that man needs redemption. The plain fact is that the totalitarian faiths are themselves complete substitutes for all universal religion. They are the modern form of the ancient idolatry—streamlined and air conditioned. The things which they worship—these are the things which Jews and Christians know are false and evil. The things which they seek to destroy are the basic ideas in any civilized system of human relationships. It is a curious and tremendously important fact that these ideas now endangered are ideas which Jews and Christians have in common. They are the ideas essential to the existence of democracy. (By H. S. Leiper, Executive Secretary, Universal Christian Council, in The United Chvrchman, July 28, 1943.) “PIPED LIGHT” The use of a clear, glass-like plastic rod in dental and surgical instruments has suggested a solution to a shell inspection problem in one of Canada’s large wartime shell-filling plants. It may sound like a far cry from the operating room to the production line of a munitions plant. But when the problem arose of inspecting the inside of the shell loaded with high explosives, it was necessary to find a light which could be inserted without danger. Ordinary electric lamps generate heat and could not be used. So engineers recalled the surgical use of piped light through clear plastic rods, which transmit cold light and concentrate it in the tip of a instrument. If this cold, piped light could be inserted into the mounth or a surgical incision, why not into a high explosive shell? Thus plastics were able to provide another solution to a wartime problem. —“Onward". HEROIC RESISTANCE EVERYWHERE In a recent address over the National Network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Dr. Basil Mathews said: “In Czechoslovakia last year the Nazis decreed that the propagation of Christianity is a crime against the state, and have with subtle cruelty attempted to enforce that. We know, however, that the Protestant Christians of that wonderful land are as true to their faith as were the heroic martyrs in the old days under the superb Christian leader Huss. In Germany, large numbers of the leaders, both of the Confessional Church, which is the name given to those who have banded themselves together to refuse the Nazi claim to dominate the pulpit, and the leaders of Roman Catholicism, are in Concentration Camps, and numbers of them have died for the faith. Among the few authetic facts that come out of Germany, however, we need only name one. When Hitler came to power the annual sale of Bibles in Germany was around eight hundred thousand a year. The sale last year, although he has forbidden the Bibles to be sold in any ordinary bookstore, rose to more than one million five hundred thousand. Similarly, in France, the sale of Bibles, since the fall of France has risen by four hundred per cent. A thousand years hence, the superb stand by the clergy and the teaching profession in Norway will still be hailed as one of the most heroic and splendid hours in the age-long story of Christianity. Quisling, whose infamy as a traitor has added a new word of con
