Have they the courage of their convictions? It will be so today as
it was before: "When Herod the King had heard these things he was
troubled and all Jerusalem with him." The powers of isolationism,
in all its forms of non-cooperation, suspicion, financial reaction,
will be sorely troubled by the Prince of Peace and will do all in
their power to kill him while still a child. And they will use all
the deception that Herod employed: "Go and search diligently for the
young child and when you have found him bring me word again that I
may come and worship him also." Go and find out all you can about
the intents and operations of the other nations so that we can use
them to our advantage. Go and expose the futility of cooperation. Go
make mistakes so that we can repudiate our delegates and once more
return to reliance upon self and national security.
Finally, will they depart into their own country another way or
will they return to Herod? Nor will it be of any more use than it
was with the old League of Nations if when they return they do not
lead the fight at home to mobilize the forces for peace in their own
countries rather than compromise with Herod. This of course they
cannot do unless they have the determined support of every one of
us. We must not only be ready to receive them with eagerness but we
must meanwhile be following the same star as best we can, seeing the
same visions, learning how to give and not just to get, practicing
the same humility, exerting the same courage of our convictions.
World peace cannot be accomplished merely by delegates any more than
the Prince of Peace could reign with the help of three wise men
alone.
"_Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil._"
Let no one think for a moment that the devil is a fool. He used the
same ingenuity with our Lord that he has shown from the day that
Adam fell to the present time. And one of his favorite methods of
attack reveals itself here--he waits until a man is in a spiritual
wilderness before he presents the greatest temptation, for he knows
that it is in loneliness that most people succumb.
The temptation may be the one which our Lord faced--to try to
achieve spiritual ends by worldly means. Or it may be less
subtle--to give in to degrading thoughts or actions. In whichever
one of the infinite forms the enticement of the devil may appear, we
are most vulnerable when cut off from companionship.
It is possible to be a romantic about temptation, to take
the attitude of Kipling's poem "If", to glory in your own
self-sufficiency when all about you are losing their heads. Or one
can be a Stoic and grimly bear the vicissitudes of life by oneself,
scorning the assistance of others as a sign of weakness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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