THE CHURCH AND CULTURE

Abstract

‘Still unfulfilled is the dream of some little, old house with its garden and tennis-court in the quiet English country, which now recedes before me like the mirages (of the desert) among which I used to picture it for so many years. So much the more must I cling to that highest which need not and must not be resigned while strength is left to perceive it ... in that particular manifestation of immortal power by which each individual spirit is most deeply moved. I believe, and proclaim my faith, that this solace will proceed increasingly from the great classics of the world; both from their own splendour and from their contrast with the limitations of modern life.’ The rather long quotation with which this paper opens comes from the pen of a man whose life has been spent in the harassing work, of administration in the near East during the troubled years that followed the last war. The point I wish to fasten on is this: in the thorny and arid task of trying to reconcile Arab and Zionist claims in Palestine he turned again and again for solace to literature, music and architecture. For him, as for so many of us, Science, the achievement of man to-day, can bring some measure of bodily comfort, but no comfort of spirit; and I am afraid, in moments of depression, it may occasion a feeling of acute fear, for the part it seems destined to play in the destruction of our civilization.

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