Alas! We know that ideals ca. ver be completely embodied in practice. Ideals must ever lie a great way off-and we will thankfully content ourselves with any not intolerable approximation theretol... And yet, it is never to be forgotten that ideals do exist; that if they be not approximated to at all, the whole matter goes to wreckl -Carlyle The Outlook For 1952 HISTORY IS A spectrum. Like radiant energies that can be arranged in order of their wave lengths only after they are brought to focus, human events are mere strings of dissolution until sorted and analyzed. To analyze the events of our time is a task requiring great diagnostic as well as synoptic skill. Few are equal to this task, which is perhaps one reason why people everywhere feel disturbed and uncertain. Even more difficult is the job of projecting events into the future. History provides us with parallels, but the notion that it repeats itself is false. Similar threads appear in history's fabric, but the present always weaves its own design. The year just ended and the one beginning what is their design? Do they indicate a design for bringing a new society to birth? Or are they merely milestones of the same old social order, with its limitations and unrealized dreams? Actually, the problem of our time, as events confirm, is that, by and large, the tides have taken us beyond our depths. This is why the present is a time of crisis. By the response given by people the world over during the present years will be determined whether we can adapt to a world likely to come to an end unless its spiritual vacuum can be filled. What are the chances for the emergence of a new faith which will bind the human race together in a powerful spiritual bond? The answer is that there is a good chance, as trends throughout the postwar period suggest. Since the end of World War II, there has been a movement toward a meeting of mankind's many faiths. Foreseeable in the new cultural age lying ahead is a new religion-one that will cut across the streams of religious traditions and merge the values of all faiths: Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem and others. As one religionist says, "The world that is opening up is insisting that all values be |