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Entrado de fresco na redacção de The Economist , em Londres, vira-me encarregado de cobrir uma sessão pública nos cavernosos paços municipais de St. Pancras. A sessão era um comício de protesto contra a intervenção anglo-americana na Guerra da Coreia. O recinto estava a apinhado. O presidente da mesa, que era um conhecido publicista de esquerda e companheiro de jornada apresentou Joseph Needham . E levantou-se então uma figura de cabelos brancos, um tanto leonina. Apresentou-se como titular da cátedra William Dunn de Microbiologia na Universidade de Cambridge como testemunha directa do que estava a passar-se tanto na China como na Coreia do Norte. Insistiu no seu compromisso de certo modo sagrado de cientista de destaque internacional com a verificação empírica e experimental dos factos. A seguir mostrou ao auditório um cartucho de projéctil vazio. Declarou ao auditório que aquele objeto sinistro era uma prova irrefutável do uso de armas bacteriológicas pela artilharia americana. Os e...

Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you can get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair. Most of us have got over the pre-war wishful thinking about international politics. It is time we did the same about religion.

Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law. and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power - it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Chritianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realizes that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about.