It is a fairly commonplace observation that the morals of groups fall far short of the morals of individuals—far short, even, of the ‘average’ morality of the individuals who compose the groups. The selfishness of nations is proverbial; it was a saying of George Washington’s that no nation is to be trusted beyond its own interests, and this saying has gained wide currency as an expression of political wisdom. The arrogance of powerful nations is as familiar to students of history as their selfishness. The late Professor Dicey, writing before the fear of world cataclysm had begun to darken men’s minds, advanced the theory that wherever British interests were at stake, these were to be advanced even at the cost of war—a theory that could be accepted as a reasonable political attitude, whereas if it were to be translated into personal terms, it would arouse the horror of any civilized person; for who in any circles would dare to assert that he was in favour of always advancing his own interests, however many murders he committed on the way?

Why should there be such a gulf between the moral behaviour of individuals towards each other, and the moral behaviour of groups towards each other? For make no mistake about it, this is not a question that concerns only the nation-group. Wherever recognizable social groups face each other, with or without political organization, we may expect scant justice, and less charity, in their mutual relations. There is no need, alas, to go into the world of profit-making industry to verify this fact; we have only to consider the attitudes of different religious groups towards each other—even the attitudes of different religious orders within the same Christian Church; the fact that these groups are composed of men and women individually dedicated to service of the same God seems to do litde to mitigate the conflicts arising from the selfishness and arrogance which everywhere accompany the behaviour of humanity ‘in the gang’.

If the question whether it is better to be red than dead or vice versa is stultifying, the reason is not so much that it poses a false alternative as that it masks what may be the true nature of the critical problem that mankind, and Christians specifically, face at the present moment of man’s time. When the atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, the magnitude of the explosive power or the extent of personal and property damage did not materially change the nature of modem war, though its magnitude and that of even more powerful, later weapons has served to bring to consciousness the qualitative difference between modem and traditional war. Of course, no one will argue that it makes no difference whether to the arsenals of World War II we add the refinements of fusion warheads and ballistic missiles, not to speak of the bacteriological and chemical weapons to which we pay little attention in our fascination with the quantity of heat liberated by a nuclear firestorm. But one could become so entranced with the terrors of nuclear war that one might spend all one’s efforts in the de-nuclearization of war; just as one could become so pragmatic about legitimate spiritual values that one might squander all one’s conscience in the justification of an unjustifiable war. I would suggest, against both, that nuclear weapons are the effect of nuclear war and, in sum, that nuclear war is not evil because it is nuclear but, on the contrary, that nuclear war is nuclear because it is evil in the first place.

Less epigrammatically, the point is that we might consider very seriously whether any modern war can be just. One may grant that, in principle, defensive war can be justified and yet question whether any total war, nuclear or conventional, can be but essentially offensive.

Albert Camus declared in the preface to his last work that Dostoievski was the teacher of his youth, that The Possessed was one of the four or five books most influential in his life. Dostoievski, so influential upon us in his own works and through great men like Camus, liked to maintain that he had a faith that had been tried by fire, that had gone down into the abysses, and had risen up again. He surely had an ardent love for Jesus Christ: perhaps no one has ever written of Christ with words of more intense beauty. Yet Dostoievsky's faith is no clear call to unity; it is as scattered and dispersed as are men’s consciences today. Nonbelievers claim him equally with believers. Orthodox and Protestant spirits hail him as their own, and point to his rather virulent anti- Romanism. Guardini observes that Dostoievski hardly knew Rome, and finds that Dostoievsky's themes expose the profound depths of the Roman faith. William Hamilton writes of Dostoievski’s hesitant faith as an image of our own—the faith of Ivan Karamazov who cannot accept at once both God and his creation. What are we to think? Is Dostoievsky’s faith Christian or is it not? How far can we identify ourselves with it? The question has repercussions upon our relationship to the existentialist and rationalist currents in our modern world.

Part of the problem in understanding Dostoievski is due to the difference of his times from our own, and part of it is due to the qualities of his religious vision. Dostoievski—and Nietzsche and Kierkegaard— wrote in and for a complacent nineteenth century. Their protest against scientism and hypocrisy was urgent, passionate—and unavailing. They knew what underrode the surface of that smug age, they knew what could erupt: screaming voices, marching boots, crunching tanks, and bombs, and wire fences.

The Secondary Modern School takes about 70 to 75 % of the children of England and Wales for their education from the age of eleven upwards. It is a type of school which is virtually the product of the 1944 Education Act: for what went before had a leaving age of fourteen instead of fifteen, and had a more limited objective: the addition of a year to the school life has brought with it both difficulties and opportunities.

Ubiquitous as the Secondary Modern school seems to be, a great many children do not have the choice of Secondary Modern or Grammar School. 141,000 children are educated in comprehensive schools; the number is growing: Anglesey is completely ‘comprehensive’: Coventry, London, Derbyshire, Birmingham are moving in that direction with varying degrees of conviction: Leicestershire has evolved a scheme different from any other, avoiding selection at eleven without embarking upon a scheme of comprehensive schools. The areas which have tried out some degree of ‘comprehension’ are not all controlled by the same political party. Southampton has avoided secondary modern schools altogether by giving every secondary school in the town some speciality of its own, leading up to some particular type of advanced course.

The Secondary Modern School is not the same thing in every area. Some areas have a very large grammar school entry; the secondary modern schools get on with a remnant, of which it could truly be said that there are not many gifted or talented among them; their more spectacular achievements are dependent upon the inefficiency of the selection process at eleven.

It is a difficult task to attempt a survey of the Congo, because in doing so, one can easily make mistakes. This is due to several different factors, as the natural condition of the country, the speed with which the history of the Congo is building up, the originality of the Congolese experience, and the fact that everybody wants to deal with the Congolese problem.

The area of the Congo is 905,400 square miles. In such a big country whose population is estimated at about 14,000,000, towns and important villages are but scattered islands in the deep forest and the exuberant grass of the savannah. Thus, one can hardly pretend to speak competently about everything which is going on throughout the country. Besides, there are so many contradictions among reports and eye witnesses that one must reflect carefully and sift newspaper reports and radio-messages. Misleading tales, issued from personal interest or wrong interpretation of the facts, lead people to doubt even the value of the objective reports which he has succeeded in distinguishing from wrong ones.

In the Congo, matters are developing so fast, and the evidence is so shifting that people find it difficult to follow the events and give a sane judgement. Moreover, the political life of the Congo is so new and original that one scarcely knows where it is leading to. And the fact that everybody deals with the Congolese problem and each wants to solve it according to his own point of view, contributes no less to create confusion of mind. In spite of these difficulties, I would like to outline some few points of our drama, as I have seen it myself, or have heard from various people some of whom have been victims or actors in the game.

In the Congolese crisis, the Catholic Church was the organism which presented most stability, and whose European members resisted better the panic of July 1960.

Von Reimarus zu Wrede was the original title of Albert Schweitzer’s book in 1906. In the translation made by William Montgomery and published in 1910, the title was freely rendered as The Quest of the Historical Jesus, and thus an important phrase in New Testament scholarship arrived. The original title indicated the author’s desire to outline the development of thought on the Gospels since the work of H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768), published in 1778, which he saw as a first attempt to present Jesus as an historical person freed from all dogmatic preoccupations, to the work ofWilhelm Wrede (1859-1906) of 1901, which was concerned with the presentation of Jesus’ ideal, the Messiasgeheimnis as the principal theme of the Gospels, freed this time from all historical preoccupations. For Wrede the preaching of Jesus was far more central to the Gospel than any attempt to portray an historical person, and Schweitzer saw the development of this point of view as the beginning of a new era. This indeed it was, and Schweitzer’s own thought, epitomized in the brilliant title coined by his translator, suggested that the Quest had come to an end: Schweitzer’s quest was leading him to see the whole meaning of the Gospel in the eschatology of Christ’s message, that is, in his preaching to mankind of the coming end of all things, and the consequent need for mankind to prepare for a spiritual renewal. For Schweitzer, the Master’s preaching looked forward to a fulfilment that never came, but nevertheless the significance of his preaching for me and for every one of his followers makes it the greatest teaching ever given to mankind. Schweitzer presented Jesus as the great idealist and it is essential to see Schweitzer’s teaching on the background of his own personality, for his understanding of Christ’s message led his own generous spirit to throw up everything to become a medical missionary in Africa. For Wrede the whole secret of the Gospel lay in Jesus’ messianic ideal; for Schweitzer not only was this so, but the preaching of Jesus emerges as the dominant factor, with an effect on the lives of all Christians.

Professor A. W. Lawrence has complained that the Speigel-Lean film which has his brother for its hero is false to the spirit, and certainly to the text, of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It has to be admitted that Mr Robert Bolt’s admirable script has little in it of the Doughty-and-Authorized-Version grandeurs, and inevitably some foreshortening of the epic was necessary to make the film at all. As it is, you are imprisoned for four hours, and, however voluntary a captive you may be, enough in this context must mean a good deal less than a detailed recapitulation of the book.

The narrative is simple, confined almost entirely to the desert campaigns that led to the capture of Aqaba and the entry into Damascus. There is mercifully little attempt to use Lawrence as the peg for an interpretation of abnormal psychology. His illegitimacy is referred to (by himself), and the humiliation of his treatment at Deraa is indicated (though with much less sadistic detail than the book itself supplies). In effect we are shown a resolute, romantic Englishman who has a deep love and understanding of the Arabs and who is convinced that he can win them unity in their common revolt against the Turks. The film is an account of how this happened, and how in the end Lawrence’s hopes were betrayed by the politicians and by the Arabs’ failure to preserve into peace the resolve they had known in battle.

In a curious way we know little more about Lawrence in the end than we did in the beginning. Peter O’Toole’s much praised performance preserves an odd reticence, not only of word and gesture (which the character of Lawrence requires) but of understanding.