Once Upon a Time: Our Green and Pleasant Land

World-famous British novelist, the late George Orwell, wrote of his countrymen in 1941:

"Their extreme gentleness, their deeply moral attitude to life...the gentleness of English civilisation is perhaps its most marked characteristic. You notice it the instant you set foot on English soil. It is a land where bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers" (The Lion and the Unicorn, 1941).

Writing 14 years later in 1955, American anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer echoed Orwell's words and added his observations: "The English are certainly among the most peaceful, gentle, courteous and orderly population that the civilised world has ever seen. The control of aggression has gone to such remarkable lengths that you hardly ever see a fight in a bar [pub] and football crowds are as orderly as church meetings" (quoted in Norman Dennis, Rising Crime and the Dismembered Family, London, 1993).

Today no author in his right mind could conscientiously write such glowing words. What we now see about us has happened in one or two generations. The behavioral changes within one century are truly astonishing.

Yet reversal is possible if we would only begin again to teach the spiritual absolutes regarding how a society should behave. The Christian pulpits in the Western world have a serious duty—an awesome responsibility for which they will be held accountable. WNP

 

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