Postscript

We are constantly being treated to surprises, some of them breath-taking, some of them alarming. But there is one surprise of a joyful nature for which in Man's hour of crisis each one of us, deep down within us, has been waiting, whether we are statesmen, philosophers, or simple working people. We could not give a name or a form to what we were expecting; for we did not know in what way, from what quarter, or in what shape it would come. We could not justify our faith by reason. We only felt instinctively that something to compensate for all the terror ought to happen. One noble old man, not many years ago, expressed this feeling thus: 'Who can doubt that the unimaginable sufferings and the heroic endeavours of the present time, the depth of the one and height of the other, the mingling of shame and glory, the tension and distress of the war-agony are the symptoms of a world in birth-pangs? But the birth of what? Perhaps of a great surprise.' And he explained: 'It may be that just when confusion is at its height and about to break out into conflict, the clamour will be hushed by the sudden trumpet-call to a new enterprise for humanity .... I mean, by the unexpected emergence of some commanding aim, of an overarching purpose that would capture the imagination of multitudes, drown their quarrels, override their disputes, make them ashamed of their former petty-mindedness, and carry them forward on a tidal wave of magnanimous resolve to an end worth attaining by man.'*

It could be that the totally unexpected advent of the Commonwealth of World Citizens, this people for the service of all peoples, will sound out that trumpet-call. If that should be so, if even the breath of such a call is wafted to the ends of the earth, then the birthday of this people, the day on which its Constitution is solemnly adopted in the sight of all nations, will be a day to set all the world singing.

Hugh J. Schonfield

Office of Coordination, 13 Prince of Wales Terrace, Kensington, London, W.B.

* Dr L. P. Jacks in The Hibbert Journal, July 1944.