Two questions have been put to me. What does our victory mean? How are we to celebrate it?
To the first question no adequate answer can be given in a brief article; but something must be said since the meaning of our victory cannot but have its influence upon our manner of celebrating it. We discover its meaning partly by looking backwards to see what we have been delivered from. From rockets and flying bombs, from battles and destruction and sudden death, from the giving of life and limb in conflict, from anxiety for those on service. These things have gone from Europe, and there is a great quiet, a great relief. But it is more than that. This country has been within sight of losing its freedom, its own way of life, its existence; Europe has been within an ace of losing for centuries to come all its civilising principles; a tyranny, satanic in its methods and its ends, came near to enslaving the bodies and the minds of men. Let us not forget how near to that fatal and final disaster we were. We were on the brink of the precipice; our feet were almost gone. We kept our heads and our faith; slowly, how slowly and at what cost, the balance turned. We won back to security; we have won through. Indeed it is a great deliverance. It means that to us. The Prime Minister has said truly that it is less a triumph than a deliverance.
For such reasons there will, I think, be and must rightly be an element of restraint in our celebrations which was shortsightedly absent in 1918. We are less light-hearted, less carefree than then, and wiser by a bitter experience. And yet at this moment of ^achievement, when hope is fulfilled and all the toil and sacrifice has earned its reward, we do well to let ourselves go in a great surge of emotion, ' in a high thanksgiving. How shall we express it? Just because it is so profound an emotion it is difficult to express, but perhaps three hints can be given.
But we are not very good, as a people, at celebrating together. We have not kept alive, as some peoples have, a great inheritance of traditional songs and dances to be the vehicle of our common emotions and to express our feelings with effectiveness. When we are in crowds we lack form. We shall do our best; but the second thing to remember is that we must keep the essential dignities of a great people at a great moment of history. There are some who do not know how to celebrate without excess or how to let themselves go without going too far. There are others who know well enough but on such an occasion forget their knowledge. But excess of that sort spoils the thing for every one and is surely out of place. For such a cause let us sing and give praise with the best that is in us.
"O God, we have heard with our ears and our fathers have declared unto us the noble=works that thou didst in their days and in the old time before them." And now we have seen for ourselves in this our day. Then are we at our best, then are we most truly a fellowship, then are we one with our forefathers and with those that shall come after us, then do we most truly give thanks and most perfectly express it, when we stand together in the house of the Lord and lift up our hearts to the most High God. If with humble hearts we thus give to God the honour due unto His name, all our other celebrations will be touched to truth and will be honest and wholesome and good. So receiving victory at His hands, we shall give thanks and be strengthened to use it to His glory and to the true service of mankind.
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Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( From the archive: The Archbishop of Canterbury's 1945 RT piece on Victory in Europe )
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