The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1959, Blaðsíða 12

In the year 1959 we celebrate Christmas and marvel at the
man-made machine that reached the moon. Christmas is a time for
lighting candles of good cheer, human warmth and spiritual values;
the moonshot is a manifestation of the triumphs of the human
mind, or brain.
The development of the human mind down through the
ages has been spectacular. This has been evidenced by the first,
kindling of fire and the first planting of seed, by the harnessing of
steam and electricity, and by the invention of the aeroplane and
the electronic brain. Scientists have calculated the distance in miles
to the sun, the age in millions of years of earth strata, and sketched
a universe with a multitude of galaxies, with light travelling a
million years in space, from a star that may have become extinct.
The mind of man has unfolded some of the secrets of the atom, and
planned the atomic reactor Today’s great wonders of technological
advance are the moon-rocket and the man-made satellites in orbit
around the earth.
These are marvellous achievements, staggering to the
imagination, but there is a tragedy involved, shockingly illustrated
by the blotting out of a city by an atom bomb, and the invention of
the intercontinental atomic missile. Some of these inventions of the
mind of man are like the jet plane X-15 that travelled faster and
faster beyond the sound barrier until it was going twice the speed
of sound—(them the signals suddenly ceased on the listening ear.
At that speed, one slip meant disaster. The same applies to our
civilization today. One slip can mean disaster. The future of the
human race depends on the sovereignty of spiritual values. Spiritual
and moral values must guide the leaders of the civilization that has
evolved the guided intercontinental missile. Otherwise, we face the
certainty of universal catastrophe.
The human race has from time immemorial reached out for
spiritual truths. Fundamental spiritual and moral values proclaim-
ed by Christ two thousand years ago, and by others long before his
time, have not been improved on since. They have been an ideal to
live up to but not very widely lived up to. And all times there has
been a rise and fall and rise again in religious life. In our day in
countries whose leaders have termed religion an opiate of the
people, religion has gained a new vitality. The smouldering fires
when trampled down have burst into a clearer, brighter flame.
The teachings of Christ two thousand years ago, peace on
earth and good will to men, the brotherhood of man, must be re-
inforced in their application today, in our dawning atomic and
space age, and we are deeply thankful, Christmas 1959, that many
leaders of our One World are desperately trying to guide its course
in this direction.—W. Kristjanson