When that task has been accomplished, perhaps early in the 21st Century since Christ died for our salvation, humankind will at last have come of age. The world events of the last four months of 1989 have seen more political, social and economic change than most decades have ever produced. Eastern Europe is being liberated. The Berlin Wall has become a mocked cairn for rock collectors. Europe is becoming a single, borderless neighborhood.
History is measured now in hours.
Tough act to follow. Perhaps we are on course in the 90s, and on a wordscale, towards a more peaceful society. Perhaps too, more money will be made available for the persistent world problems such as hunger, disease and the destruction of our environment. The new decade will be a challenge, a time of cultivating and husbanding. It is fitting that it will end the century and the millenium, for with the harvest the world will be in much better shape to get on with its big problems.