Prague 1961 . William W Simpson . Prague is still one of the loveliest cities of Europe , and one of the few still unspoiled by the ravages of modern warfare . but it is also - or so it seemed to me - a very sad city ; a city whose scars are those of a cold rather than a hot war . I was very much aware of this as I stood , a few weeks ago , in the Ring , the Market Place of the old City . the temptation to find sermons in stones was almost irresistible . there , in the centre of the Ring , stands a magnificent statue of Jan Hus , the Bohemian reformer and martyr who , in 1406 , went to the stake rather than renounce what the council of Constance had judged to be his heresies . on his left is the Tyn Church , austerely Gothic , and a symbol of the Hussite reform movement of which it was the spiritual centre in the fifteenth century . on the other side of the Ring , stands one of the many Baroque Churches , which in Prague bear witness to the catholic revival of the seventeenth century . but that is not all . linking the Ring with the south bank of the Ultava river is a splendid modern thoroughfare cut towards the end of the nineteenth century through the heart of what was formerly the Prague ghetto . and at the far end , high on the north bank of the river , stands a colossal figure of Joseph Stalin , forever looking down towards the Market Place where the figure of Jan Hus forever turns its back towards this twentieth-century exponent of an ideology which denies the very foundations of Judaism and of Christianity , protestant and catholic alike ! not much of the ghetto remains . most of its buildings were pulled down a generation ago by town planners . it remained for the Nazis to destroy its inhabitants . on the walls of one of its five surviving synagogues , the Pinhas , the visitor may read the names of 70,000 men , women and children whose end was part of Hitler &apos;s attempt to implement the final solution of the Jewish problem . of a community which in 1933 numbered some 357,000 there remain today only 18,000 , and of these many are almost completely assimilated . a few only of an older generation strive to keep alive the traditions of the fathers . they have become virtually the custodians of a museum ; paradoxically , one of the finest Jewish museums in the world . for here , in Prague , the Nazis collected together ritual objects of all kinds from Jewish homes and synagogues throughout central and eastern Europe . the monthly war-time return-sheets wrote Hana Volavkova in a article on the state Jewish Museum published in a volume of Prague Jewish studies , show how the stores grew , and the museum spaces filled up : 2,000 Torah curtains , 4,000 Torah mantles , 6,000 silver crowns , shields and pointers , 40,000 archivalia from provincial towns . the bare figures will show the numeric growth of the collections , these foundation stones for the later systematic work , whose initial stages were quite modest . already by the end of 1954 the inventory contained 120,000 numbers . but I had come to Prague , not merely to visit the representatives of the Jewish community , by whom I was most warmly received , but to attend , as an observer in a purely private and unofficial capacity , the first all-Christian peace assembly . the outcome of three years of preparatory work in which the initiative had been taken by the protestant and orthodox Churches of eastern and south-eastern Europe , this assembly brought together more than 600 Christians from all parts of the world and from almost every section of the Christian family , save one : the Roman catholic . threat of self-extermination . the assembly is being held , to quote one of the preliminary papers , at a time when mankind is being threatened with self-extermination , since war in the atomic age no longer presents a responsible and sensible possibility for solving international problems . its main purpose was to consider what is the particular contribution of Christians in this situation , and on what is this contribution founded ? how are we both to hear and to communicate God &apos;s word in this situation ? these were , and are , very pertinent questions - far beyond the scope of so large a gathering to answer in so short a time . for the 600 members of the assembly spent only five days together : two in plenary session , two in group discussion , and a fifth in greeting and taking leave of each other . when to the limitations imposed by this manifest shortage of time are added the problems arising from diversities of language and the need at times for a double and even a triple process of interpretation , it will be readily appreciated that the assembly was more in the nature of a demonstration than a conference from which it would be reasonable to expect definitive results . but a demonstration of what ? certainly not of any claim to a superficial unity based on the ignoring or minimising of important , and at times fundamental differences between members of the various Churches and traditions represented in the assembly . there was no intention , declared Professor Hromadka , Dean of the Comenius theological faculty in Prague , in his opening address to the conference , to level the organisational differences , the diversity and riches of the heritage and legacy possessed by the individual Churches and their members &amp;hellip; . on the contrary , it is here , among us , that our multiformity assumes a deeper meaning &amp;hellip; . we can not labour for a new atmosphere in the world , in international relations , unless we form here among ourselves an internal partnership of trust and willingness to learn from one another . criticism of Vatican . the principle was clear - and unexceptionable . its application , however , was far from easy . it very soon became evident , for example , that those coming from countries on the other side of the curtain were determined that whatever else the assembly might say or do , it should condemn colonialism and the Roman catholic Church . already foreshadowed by Professor Hromadka in his opening address , this was strongly reinforced by Archbishop Nikodem , the leader of the Russian orthodox delegation , who in his opening address declared that the Roman curia , hypnotised by the prospect of the absolute power of the papacy , has by its wordly interest and connections become rooted in an old mode of life , has irreally ( sic ! the quotation is from the translation distributed at the conference ) tied itself up with imperialist designs and is still vulgar and often hostile to the moral and social demands of the masses who are fighting for the ideals of freedom , equality and brotherhood . not surprisingly , this kind of scathing and one-sided attack produced a strong resistance on the part of many of the western representatives : a resistance which there is reason to believe was not altogether without effect , for although the message of the assembly contained certain critical references to the Vatican they were set in a context of declared intention to pray that God may hold us and our Roman catholic brethren firmly in his love and may guide us all to the recognition of his will and to the obedience to his command of love and peace . for the rest , however , there was a wide area of shared concern and substantial agreement on such issues as the banning of nuclear tests , the abolition of nuclear weapons , the dangers of the cold war , and the need to fix our eyes on the co-existence and constructive co-operation of nations and groups of nations which are living in different economic , political and cultural systems and traditions . mutual condemnation , declared the assembly , should give place to a friendly co-operation . personal contacts . but the value of such an assembly lies not merely in its formal pronouncements , important though the message of this assembly was in indicating a wider range of agreement on a larger number of issues than many might have thought possible , but rather in the personal meeting between people from so many and such widely differing situations . those meetings took place in discussion groups , where , in spite of the tendency of representatives of certain Churches to read prepared statements , the beginnings of a real dialogue were noticeable . they took place also over meal tables , in the coaches which transported members to and from the conference Hall , and in many other informal ways . there was a great deal of ignorance to be dispelled : I vividly remember a meal-time conversation with the pastor of an eastern European Church who told what a great surprise it had been to him to discover that Churches in one of the western European countries had any interest or played any active part in relation to the social problems of the community . there were suspicions also to be overcome : the mutual suspicion that each was motivated by political rather than religious considerations . if there are Christians in the west who assume all too readily that their fellow Christians in the east have sold the pass in coming to terms with communism , there are many in the east who suspect that their brethren in the west are knowingly or unknowingly largely under the control of imperialist capitalism . it would be foolish to pretend that these suspicions are altogether without foundation on either side . under whatever political or economic system they are living at the present time , Christians both east and west of the curtain face the same basic problem of deciding how far they can , in conscience , travel with the state . this , of course , is no new problem . nor is it a specifically Christian one . it is as old as the Maccabean resistance to Antiochus Epiphanes - and older . moreover , in the world of today it is a problem confronting Jews no less than Christians . and if the difficulties at present seem greater in the east , where the apostles of the Marxist-Leninist form of dialectical materialism openly attack what they regard as religious or superstitious survivals , the situation is hardly less serious in the west where more practical forms of materialism are in danger of undermining the very foundations of the Judeo-Christian way of life . it is , I believe , the fact that Christians ( and Jews ) on both sides of the curtain face similar if not identical problems that gives special importance to this first all-Christian peace assembly , and to all that went to its making and that will , it is hoped , flow from it . that there are dangers and difficulties to be encountered is inevitable . but I came away from Prague deeply convinced of the value of the experience and firmly persuaded that Christians in the west must take this eastern initiative much more seriously , and at the same time prepare themselves more effectively both to take advantage of the opportunities it affords and to guard against any dangers to which it might give rise . better than being at school ! an account of a recent educational project and its results . in his book race , prejudice and education , Dr Cyril Bibby throws some doubt on the popular view that young children are free from prejudice , and adds that this attractive picture of childhood innocence scarcely corresponds with the facts . from the very earliest days infants are imbibing the implicit assumptions of the society in which they live . it is just because of this liability on the part of young people to pick up the prejudices of their environment that the council of Christians and Jews has always regarded the broadening of their minds and sympathies through contacts with different religious , racial and cultural groups as an essential part of its educational programme . here is a description of a most valuable piece of work on these lines carried out by the Leeds branch of the council as part of their programme and some of the reactions to which it gave rise . on Wednesday , July 12th , forty boys and girls from a local primary school , accompanied by two teachers , were shown over a synagogue by one of the branch &apos;s secretaries . he gave them half-an-hour &apos;s talk on the synagogue , its symbols and ceremonial , and there followed a period for questions and answers . 