Out of the present turmoil of human thought, violently loosened from its old anchorages, a general consensus of opinion seems to be forming that an entirely new way of life must be evolved, so that, national and international confidence being restored, men may unite in peace and spears be turned into pruning hooks, as the prophet expressed it many hundreds of years ago. No one so far has set forth in full detail what shape or form this new way must take, nor has there been a definite lifting of the veil of materialism which has dropped over so much human activity, excepting, it would seem, that of destructiveness and counter destructiveness.
And yet, the greatest of all prophets, Jesus of Nazareth, whose foresight of the inevitable developments of human experience is today being proved so astonishingly accurate, closed his great prophecy as recorded in St. Luke's Gospel with the remarkable statement, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." If then his warning of destruction is found to be so strikingly correct, may we not rest in the conviction that his foresight of ultimate deliverance must be equally so?
In order to visualize, even though dimly, some idea of the form this redemption must take, it seems sensible to look back at the events which succeeded the period in which Jesus lived and taught, as the processes of human thought generally follow much the same lines of development.
