LOVE FOR PEACE

 

          LOVE FOR PEACE

            Love for peace is love for happiness, prosperity and tranquility; want of it is anxiety, tension, adversity and distress.

            The world is not a peaceful place. It is one of conflicts  that breed violence and mutual hatred.

            Personal peace depends on possessing cardinal virtues like faith, hope,  prudence, charity, fortitude, temperance and justice.

 

            The vices which are the enemies of peace  are : avarice, ambition, envy, anger, pride, gluttony and inertia.

            History is a record of both peaceful, faithful and prosperous, as well as hostile, disloyal and treacherous times.

            Peace primarily depends upon an individual’s temperament. Somebody has rightly said : The more quietly and peaceably we all get on, the better for ourselves  --- the better for our neighbours. In nine cases out of ten the wisest policy is, if a man cheats you, quit dealing with him; if he slanders you, quit his company.

            To conclude, an extract from a love poem written by the English poet Matthew Arnold (1822-88).  It is worth reading and remembering.

 

The sea of Faith

seasea of FaithTThe sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore 

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. 

But now I only hear 

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 

Retreating, to the breath 

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 

And naked shingles of the world. 

Ah, love, let us be true 

To one another! for the world, which seems 

To lie before us like a land of dreams, 

So various, so beautiful, so new, 

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, 

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; 

And we are here as on a darkling plain 

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, 

 

                                                          *********

G.R.Kanwal

10 May 2025