Assembly at Caux, Switzerland on the occasion of Dr. Buchman's 83rd birthday, June 4. At this Assembly
leaders from every continent are meeting to plan a gioba I strategy to answer corruption, Communism and war.
FORTY YEARS AGO THIS MONTH there
came to Oxford a man who had some knowledge
of life, some insight into the ways of East and
West, who had spent days with Gandhi in India
and Sun Yat-sen in China. In what is now Kerala
he met an English Bishop who said, “You must go
to Oxford. They need the experience you have
found."
During those forty years, the conviction he
brought to Oxford has been a live issue, rousing
men and nations through those who have chosen
or rejected his challenge.
It was an Oxford man, who had been in the
British Parliament for twenty-five years, a man
who played a part in the Cyprus settlement,
who this week spoke up for this conviction in
public debate A week before, the head of a
college spoke boldly of it in introducing that
great African film, “Freedom," to an Oxford
audience. These men, and many others, are in
the line of those who in Britain's history have
brought integrity into national life by their
chcision The title of this speech, “Brave Men
Cl.oose," is taken from a book by an Oxford man
o is very theme, that brave men turn the course
of history.
One such man in Oxford was Professor
Streeter. The message rang a clarion call to this
great scholar. It challenged him. It touched him.
In Oxford Town Hall, before many members of
the University, he said, “I have been watching this
work with what diplomatists call ‘benevolent neu
trality.’ Tonight I have decided.. .During these last
years I have felt the world situation becoming more
full of depression, more full of despair. There is a
rest deal of goodwill, but there is not enough of
to solve our tremendous problems—war, class
war and economic breakdown.” Later he said,
“Modern civilization can oniy be saved by a moral
awakening. It can happen in Britain. It will hap
pen if those who lead Britain learn to find in God
their inspiration and direction. And Britain thus
led would save the world.”
“I have degided.” There is the key. M
A REVOLUTIONARY
Eleven distinguished members of senior Ox- ii
lord paved the way for Dr. Streeter’s decision,
among them the Master of Balliol, the Master of
University College, and others who later became
heads of colleges. They stood for justice and fair
Elay for this message. It captured a wave of men
i Oxford. Oxford became a voice to the world of
a revolutionary faith.
It was another great Oxford man, the late
Marquis of Salisbury, who speaking in the House
of Lords said, “The cause of the world’s state is
not economic. The cause is moral.” He echoed Dr.
Streeter’s conviction when he said, “If 1 may use
a phrase which is common in a great movement
taking place at this moment in this country and
elsewhere, what we want are God-guided person
alities, to make God-guided nationalities, to make
a new world. All other ideas of economic adjust
ment are too small really to touch the center of
the evil ”
He. too, decided, and to his home invited this
span to meet with the leaders of British life to see
how they could unitedly give a moral and spiritual
leadership to a world on the brink of collapse.
Under the Hatfield trees he walked with friends
<lld and new, among them Lord Lytton, who was
later to say that that walk had m an indelible
mark on his life.
In East London, in the cradle of the British
Labor movement, where Moral Re-Armament was
launched, there were also brave men who chose.
' ’ . ..
There was Tod Sloan, Keir Hardie’s fellow fighter
from the docks. He wrote, “Chaos cannot obtain if
we work, live and practice Moral Re-Armament.
It is a really laughing, living, loving obedient will
ingness to restore God to leadership. This to me is
the only revolution that matters—the change of
human nature—and it does happen.*'
There was Ben Tillett, pioneer of the dockers’
unions across the world. From his death bed be
sent this word, “Tell Frank Buchman to go on
fighting. You have a great international movement.
Use it. It is the hope of tomorrow. It will bring
sanity back to the world.”
The Earl of Athlone, who first met this mes
sage in 1929 when he was Governor-General of
South Africa, speaking in a radio broadcast to the
British Commonwealth in the early days of the
war, said: “The call for Moral Re-Armament has
encircled the world, and become a source of fresh
hope to millions of men and women. Heads of
states, national, civic and industrial leaders of all
classes, creeds and parties have welcomed it as the
cure for that deep disease of the spirit from which
cvilization is suffering.
“Moral Re-Armament stands for a change of
heart, for that new spirit which must animate all
human relations. It calls on us to make the will
of God the guiding force, as for individuals, so for
homes and nations.’*
As the ideological struggle intensified across
the world, a growing multitude caught the fire of
these pioneers. For only men ablaze for the right
can ever hope today to win men who bum for the
wrong. “Fire from Heaven,” that is how Don
Sturzo, patriot-priest of Italy, described Moral
Re-Armament in & message sent to the world as
sembly on Mackinac Island. His thinking inspired
the Christian Democrat parties of Italy, France
and Germany, which have given three great Euro
peans to the world—Prime Minister de Gasperi,
Prime Minister Schuman and Chancellor Ade
nauer.
Prime Minister de Gasperi expressed his con
viction that Moral Re-Armament by going “to the
root of the world's evils will bring about the under
standing between men and nations for which all
people long.”
Prime Minister Schuman wrote, “What Moral
Re-Annament brings us is a philosophy of life
applied in action. It is not a question of a change
of policy. It is a question of changing men. Democ
racy and her freedoms can be saved only by the
quality of the men who speak in her name.”
Chancellor Adenauer knows the value of
Moral Re Armament He says it has played “an
invisible but effective part in bridging differences
of opinion between negotiating parties in impor
tant international agreements.”
3 These brave men chose. Now a world-wide
army is surging forward on every continent.
ICAN OFFENSIVE
' II— .
Pour weeks ago there arrived in Br?^1 *
target of the Kremlin for Latin Americ e
of 150 from twenty-four countries. T h o s
fkjeked to see the -Japanese play, The Tfc„, Wvw
lng the answer to the Tokyo riots. Thousands more
who could not get in saw films giving the answer
to conflict of race, class and ideology.
The President heard from the grandson of Ma
hatma Gandhi, a former Mau Mau fighter from
Kenya, a former top Communist student leader
from Kerala, an American educator whose expe
rience of Moral Re-Armament had led him to give
his life to Negro education in America, the son of
an American Ambassador to Brazil and Peru, an
Indian chieftain from Western Canada, a Nigerian
nationalist, a member of the great Mitsui indus
trial family of Japan, a Frenchwoman who was a
member of the central committee of the Socialist
Party and leader of the three million Socialist
women of France, and a British admiral, descend
ant of the Lord Cochrane who helped liberate
Chile. Brazil and Peru. v
The Corriere Della Sera, carrying this news
to Italy, wrote: "President Janio Quadros re
ceived today a delegation of Moral Re-Armament
at his residence. He gave them a cordial welcome
and said, ‘I have followed the activities of Moral
Re-Armament now for several years. I am con
vinced that the world as it is today cannot survive
unless men stand for the ideals for which you are
fighting. The disorder in the world today—eco
nomic, social and political—is due to the fact that
men have stopped being concerned about spiritual
and moral forces. I have listened with deep emo
tion to vour convictions. I want to let you know
that as far as I can I will do all that is possible so
that we in Brazil will understand better the moral
values of our civilization/
"Responding to the invitation to come tp the
conference for Moral Re-Armament which opens
in Caux, Switzerland, on June 1st, Quadros said,
'I will send a personal representative/
"When he learned that the Japanese play, The
Tiger, was available, he telephoned to the General
in charge of his Military Household and said,
‘Provide all that is needed to bring The Tiger to
Brasilia. Instruct the Mayor to obtain the theater,
provide transport in the city and, further, have the
Air Force put at their disposal so that this work
can be known in city after city through all the
centers of BrazA*.” ' BnHe '
COMMUNISM CONFRONTED
General Bethlem, describing in the press the
impact of this force, writes, "For the first time on
this continent Communism has been confronted
with a positive alternative and for the first time
it is being made to retreat. 1 have found a real
revolution ip MRA. We Brazilians are being chal
lenged to give this to Communists, non-Commu
nists and anti-Communists alike. Many of us have
been confused through our moral compromise. I
have found clarity through change. We need to
wake up. The ideological war is already here.
Which way Brazil goes, so goes Latin Amenca. The
situation is deadly serious. A former Minister of
Foreign Affairs told me, “Cuba has brought us to
the brink of war. MRA may be the last hope. If 4
Brazil gets it the world will get it.' The Minister
of War said, 'We will do everything we can to
make Brazil the capital of thd answer. You have
the winning idea in MRA.*
“In the Catliolic University of Sao Paulo
where, it was stated, eighty percent of the students
were pro-Castro, one professor-priest said, 'Since
you have given your films and plays and held an
assembly fit our university, there have been no
political demonstrations. Moral Re-Armament is
being talked about everywhere.’
“A missionary monk, who had come down
from North Brazil where the Communists are
training small armies and guerilla bands in the
hills, said, 'Brazil is just like Spain was before the
Civil War. Can you fill my truck full of your Utera
.