The Alaska daily empire., 1920-03-03
WORLD IS WEARY
 AND SUFFERING
 FROM EXHAUSTION
Reaction After War Has Rattled Many and Disappointed Others
 Says Local Divine
(By Rev. G. D. ChristianD

from nervous exhaustion; that II Is d special time ito try mems souls, and that the fortitude, calmness. and spiritual strength which we needed during "war' time was as nothing compared with that which we need now.
 The world today is steeped in great weariness.
 From Persia tor Lands End. there is suffering, and in the greater part of that area, a threatened or even actual starvation.
 Our own land, spared so large measure of the horrors of war, shares in the sadness over newmade graves surmounted by wooden crosses, and in the anxiety over broken lives of many who have returned to us.
 Spiritual Issues.
 While we need not be pessimistic. let us not mistake the seriousness of the world issues of to-day. They are in part the natural issues of hun cry men. desperate and determined at any cost to have food for them selves and their familieS-in soine countries naturally incensed at the partly unnecessary and interruptions profiteering and enrichment while theI masses struggle for subsistence; part ly due naturally and inevitably to de- creased production, heavy exports, ex- travagance, the high cost of living etc.
 But the issues are also spiritual issues. Much of the world feels a sense of despair. The excitement. tlle nervous exhiliaration of war, are over. The reaction has come.
 We see all this in our own coun- try. All of us were ready to do our utmost to win the war. But, since the armistice, every activity has been hard The collection for Armenian Relief was hard The Red Cross col lection for clothing for the destitute of all Europe brought in much less tlian had been anticipated. Many peo- pie fly to the opposite extreme of their wartime denials. "The danger is over. The bow must be un- strung"
 And if we see this reaction in our own country-where our war exper- ience has been so much less than that of Europe, and the extent Of our suffering so enormously less how great must be the reaction in Europe?
 The world is suffering today from nervous exhaustion.
 We see 1t in the enemy countries, where1o one wave of despair succeeds another wave of despair in rapid succession. We look at our news papers every day to see what gov ernments, what nations, have arisen or fallen over the night, and what excesses have been committed.
 We see it also in the nations Of the Allies.
 We recognize il in the intensity of the partisanship that has arisen at home. Returned soldiers from Ell rope, supposing they have been thru the thick of the fight and are re- turning to a land of peace, in which a grateful people will rise enthusiasts tically to shower plaudts upon all who had part in the magnificent. so astounding a victory, find, instead, nation critcising and carping at everything that has been and is being done. each man telling how he could have run the government, some even willing to undo the war if they but carry their point. Each set and fac- ton is mad because it did not get what it wanted regardless of the in terests of all the other people, and maligning the names of those whom the soldiers revere as among the great of the worlds history. The soldiers return physically exhausted; they find their home land and their home people nervously exhausted. As people, brief though our experience of the war has been, and with never the depression of single defeat to our arms, we have scarce been able to stand the strain that others un- derwent in greatly intensified meas ure for more than four years. That : is a rather serious thing.
 The Need Spiritual One.
 We need a strength other than our own. We need spiritual renewal. We need the impetus to cast all OUT care-all the world care-upon Goo. for he careth for us. We need 10 quiet our nerves in Him.
 The psychology of nerves IS Ill part mystery, even after many years of scientific research; but more and more so men of science discover that. very largely. nervous maladies will give way to spiritual energy, and that religion is better than drugs or sugar pills for them.
 .aThose who have suffered in and from the war need prescription that can be given by Christ's Church rather than by the physician of bod les. This does not mean, for one moment, to depricate the ministry of the physician, but only to assert the need of both. and of spiritual in fluences especially in cases of ner- vous trouble. and other illness. too. As the great scientist. Sir Oliver Jodga says "It may be that if is