This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Aug. 17, 1940.
I will lose my faith if we do not win this war. Three times this week I have heard this, and I feel I must deal with it. Our people grow panicky, not from lack of courage, but lack of knowledge. One thing is certain, if we, the free people, lose our faith, most certainly we shall lose the war, for faith is our strongest defence. We must cherish it, guard it, defend it as our fighting men will guard and defend our coasts.
Faith always demands a long view. God does not balance his books every Saturday night. In all departments of life it is a mistake to look for quick returns. Christ told his disciples not to look back when they put their hand to the plow, for he knew if they did they would be discouraged.
We must not sacrifice tomorrow for today, as some people seem disposed to do. It is a poor farmer who eats his seed potatoes.
I have always envied the people who are so sure we are going to win the war, just because we are the British Empire, and our victory is written in the stars. This, in itself, is the good bridge that carries them high over the flood. I hope nothing will ever disturb it.
But there are many others who question, and remember, and are anxious. Some of them now cry out in their agony for clear definite help in this time of great need. They wonder why God does not interfere. Why He seems to sleep while His people perish.
On May 26, we had a day of prayer. We knew we needed help but we didn’t know just how desperate the need was.
The next day, the evacuation from Dunkirk began, and that accomplishment surely was a miracle. If the sea had been stormy, and if the nights had been clear, the dangers would have been multiplied. But the sea was calm, and a sheltering fog came over the channel, and in these circumstances came a direct answer to our prayers.
Since the beginning of the war we have heard with dread that Germany has a secret weapon, which turned out to be the magnetic mine. The German high command believed in its invincibility. Their scientists had worked eight years to prove this, but the British found a way of annulling it in three weeks.
The whole British defence is a miracle. For seven years, Germany has starved her people to get ready for war, while England went on her peaceful way ignoring the danger, still believing in her old methods of compromise.
We are not proud now of our unawareness of danger, but at least we are exonerated from the charge of having had war ambitions. Today, after all the shocks of betrayal and all the other hard blows that have fallen, the island fortress holds. That is a miracle!
But we have not yet mobilized all our people. The registration will help, but there are still undiscovered mines of strength here in Canada, people who are capable of great service, who are still unaware of the need.
In England, the government decided to dismiss all aliens from positions of trust, a procedure that seemed justifiable, in the face of great danger, but as time went on the statesmen took a saner view, and now there have been reinstatements. Many of the aliens were people who had left Germany because they hated the barbarous rule of Hitler. Under the first decree they were treated as spies and enemies, but now this has happily been changed.
The essence of democracy is tolerance, reason and justice. We must emphasize this. Let us tell this to our children, and impress it on our friends, for it is a precious inheritance.
Too many of our people are still thrashing out old chaff, like the Irish who are still divided into Protestant and Catholic, though the enemy is at their gate. I heard a sermon recently in which England, Canada and the United States were charged with all the mistakes of the past. All the skeletons were taken from the closets and paraded before us. We had nothing left to be proud of, and the sunshine of that bright Sunday morning grew pale and menacing as we listened.
If we had no inner fortification, our hearts would have been frozen with a fear that the democratic countries of the world were utter failures, and did not merit survival. The speaker evidently forgot that we are at war, and this is no time for recrimination and charges.
Morale is more than half the battle in times like these.
When I was in Ottawa recently, I had dinner one night in the Grill Room of the Chateau Laurier, a lovely room, with crystal chandeliers, banked flowers, a great dancing floor in the centre of the room, and an orchestra at one end, tables all around. On the floor, dancing with a young girl, I saw an old man, in the uniform of a general, a distinguished-looking man, his face criss-crossed with wrinkles and his shoulders bent with years of intense living.
I could see that this husky young partner, probably his granddaughter, had dragged the old man away from his peaceful fireside. His knees were stiff, his feet tender. He made me think of a racehorse, grown too old for the track, but trying to get into his old stride. I could almost hear his knees squeak, and I resented this brazen young woman. Why didn’t she pick on someone her own age — for I know about stiff knees.
The orchestra played I’ll Never Smile Again, Night and Day, Day and Night and still the young one pushed the old man around.
Then suddenly the music changed, and the young tenor who was doing the vocals began to sing There’ll Always Be an England, and I was a bit shocked at that. It did not seem just right. Surely that is the subject for prayer rather than for dancing.
That’s what I thought. But I soon had reason to change my mind. The old general and his granddaughter passed in front of us again, and what a change had taken place! The old back had straightened, the old face was no longer old, the wrinkles were gone. His eyes had a new gleam, and his feet were light.
He was the leader now. He was swinging the young one.
And I looked at that fine, old face, I caught the radiance, the gleam, the infectious challenge and I sang, too. And then with one impulse we all stood up and sang and sang. And so it happened that an ordinary dinner program in a hotel dining room became a dedication service to King and Country and all that we hold dear.
We need more of this. We need more bands playing in the street, more flags flying, more coming together, more building of morale, more concern for other people. There are good old pianos in rooms not much used, where young and old people, boys and girls, sailors and soldiers, could gather on Sunday evenings, to sing hymns of the church and songs of the nation, to build up reserves of character against the evil days ahead of us.
No people ever had a better cause than we have, or a greater reason for waging war with all our might. Everything we have is in the balance. If we lose, we lose all.
So let us postpone our criticisms for a brighter day. Stop blaming other people for their neglect and failures. Let us reserve all our criticism for ourselves and look around us to see what we can do in this — man’s greatest fight for freedom.
