One of many things this war is teaching the world is-the big meaning of fellowship. This is readily detected in letters and newspapers from our Homelands. There, is a partnership, a community of interest, a friendliness, a camaraderie to which we were insensitive in the years before September 1939. It was there, but being dormant it needed the fierce furnace of conflict to bring it into being. Here are some random extracts taken from a recent paper from England giving an account of a raid on Sheffield:
"Our first job has been to discover where folks are, and then see what can be done for them. I went to one house and knocked at the door: a little boy across the way shouted—Say, mister, the people over there have been evacuated!" Those we find say, 'It's great to be visited.' Those for whom we can do things. even in the smallest way, are most appreciative."
"I found a woman weeping over her scattered furniture in the ruins of her bombed house. We arranged to take the furniture to the hall on a lorry. Then she dried her eyes; she felt Safer"
one of the worst streets I have seen, I noticed a piece of string hung between the remains of two houses—and suspended from the string a Union Jack!"
"Today I visited a woman at a house where a hinge door hed crashed through the roof of her house into her bedroom. I came to see if I could offer any help. 'Oh—now you're here', she said. 'I'll give you some clothes for poor people who have none'. And her house was only partly paid for—on the hire-purchase system!" It is those in need who see the needs of others.
The tragedy' of the position is that apparently a second world war has been necessary to set forth the deep meaning of fellowship. Some of us had hoped that we had learnt this lesson in the years 1914-1918, but we hadn't.
The Fellowship of Suffering is no new thing to those who read the New Testament. The Gospels show us the conception of something greater than a commonwealth of nations—an eternal Divine Commonwealth uniting the whole world, and made actual by Jesus in a society to be welded together by fervent loyalty to Him-Self as the Christ of God. and pervaded by a life of mutual service to members. He would bring His followers into true fellowship with a Divine Father by revealing Him and pardoning their sins. In Christ Jesus "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female." This is the concept we must form if we would rid the world of the evil of war. The condition of membership in this brotherhood of the Kingdom is to follow Jesus, even though this may seem to the man of the world to be nothing less than to lose one's life. Fellowship with Jesus costs much. though not so much as fellowship with the Prince of Evil, Family -tieg may have to be severed, the hatred of an unthinking world may be vented on His disciples, billows of persecution may sweep over them, sometimes they will be unpopular, but in this eternal society is life indeed. "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The lesson of the past twelve months it surely that a nation may save her property. but the price to be paid is the loss of her soul. Jesus offers His followers a fellowship in a new brotherhood, which is international and which more than compensates for any worldly friendship or possessions they may have to renounce. New virtues will abound in this brotherhood. Love working in helpful ministries for others is of the essence of this companionship. Rank is assigned, not as in worldly kingdoms, but by the degree of service rendered by each to all During the last war Wallis Bisseker died while leading his men. As he fell he cried, "You're through. lads!" They were. and so was he. His last thought and word was of his comrades. That is Fellowship. He knew the meaning of the words, "if we Walk in the light as He is in the light, we shall have fellowship one with another." We can re-create this broken world by Fellowship. The real hope is that we will all rediscover its inner meaning and together help to build a better world. The central truth of Christianity is to be found in Fellowship with Him, which manifests itself in the love and service of man.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.