DEAR TIME-READER

At a recent dinner given by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, Henry Luce, editor-in-chief of this magazine, made a speech which he called The Guide To Peace. Here are some excerpts from it:

"Tolerance is vitally important in our America, not for the purpose of making people indifferent about faith, but just for the opposite reason--namely, to maintain an atmosphere in which every man may be encouraged to have and to hold what faith he has, to increase and deepen that faith, or if he lacks faith, to seek it seriously.

"As a nation today we need moral unity. We need a unity beneath and above politics. We need a unity which underlies and over-arches our competitive struggle for material, selfish advantage . . .

"The major religions in America differ on the means of personal, individual salvation. But the major religions of America are in profound concurrence on the basis of our social and national life. They agree that the foundation of social life and the guide of all governments is and must be the moral law.

"It is precisely this article of our faith that is most relentlessly attacked by Soviet Communism. The men of the Kremlin say they have no objection to religion as a personal matter. They permit churches to stay open. But what they cannot permit, what they dare not tolerate is the assertion that their government, all government, is subject to a higher law, the moral law.

"But just that is the core of our faith as a nation . . .

"We are in very great trouble today, we and the whole of mankind. The organized form of that trouble is easy to name. It is Soviet Communism. In his letter calling for Brotherhood Week, the President of the United States key-noted 'totalitarianism' as the new barbarism which threatens us today. You and I know that there is only one totalitarianism which now threatens the security of the United States and the peace of the world. And you and I are free to name it -- Soviet Communism. "What are we going to do about it? . . .

"In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize. This is what he said about Peace at Christiania, Norway: '. . . Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy.'

"That is a clear statement of the moral law as applied to peace and international politics . . .

"We must realize that at this moment most of the people of the world are passing through a period of revolution, tyranny, chaos, or all three. There is very great suffering both in body and spirit. Faith in an established order exists among very few peoples of this globe. In this situation the greatest gift we can bring to many people is confidence in order under law . . . And let us never forget that though Communist tyranny can stand between nations and the moral law, it cannot stand between men and the moral law. "

So finally the question is : do we believe in the moral law? Do we believe with Emerson that we live in a moral universe? It cannot be proved by science. For most of us, it cannot be proved in our own fallible and faltering lives. It can only be known by faith. Reason does not deny the moral law. Reason supports it. But the moral law can only be known by faith -- by the faith of others, by the faith of our fathers, by the faith that comes in every age to men who humbly and earnestly seek. The great Christian promise is this : Seek and ye shall find.

It is a promise to the wise and to the simple, to the strong and to the weak.

It is a promise to every man without distinction of race or person. That is the promise and the premise on which America was founded. That is the promise and the premise on which America will endure and with her Jus tice and Freedom on this earth."

Interesting sidelight: one of the founders of the N.C.C.J. 22 years ago, Newton D. Baker, was a charter subscriber to TIME.

Cordially yours,

JAMES A. LINEN

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.