At a meeting of the London Diocesan Conference [188] held in Central Hall, Westminster, in 1936, the following resolution was submitted for discussion by permission of the Bishop of London:
"This Conference, while fully aware of the difficulties that must arise from the presence in certain districts of large populations of people of other religious beliefs and social habits, asserts that the Jew and the Christian are equal children of God, and therefore calls upon all Christians to stand firm against any and every attempt to arouse anti-Semitic feeling for political or any other needs." [189]
The Bishop of Chichester was very active in promoting help for Christians of Jewish origin. [190] This subject is, however, beyond the scope of this book. In the summer session of the Church Assembly, in June 1938, Dr. Bell pleaded that the needs of Jews and Christians alike should be remembered. "The Bishop of Chichester moved: That this Assembly records its deep distress at the sufferings endured by 'non-Aryan' Christians, as well as by members of the Jewish race, in Germany and Austria, and urges that not only should everything possible be done by Government aid to assist their emigration into other countries but also that Christians everywhere should express their fellowship with their suffering brethren by material gifts as well as by personal sympathy and by prayer."
He said he did not want to speak of political matters in a country with which they desired to be friends, nor to attack the leadership of the great German State. He asked the Assembly not to make any protest against a system, but to record its deep distress at the suffering of Christians and Jews… <76> What could members do? First of all they must not forget it, but let it be printed on their memory and never rest while the distress was unhealed. They must remember the needs of Jews and Christians alike. It was wrong to separate the Jews and leave the Jews to the Jews and the Christians to the Christians. They both made a deep appeal by their sufferings to all humanity and above all to the Christian Church.'… First of all they could pray for the sufferers; prayer from the heart availed and was a great bond of fellowship. Next they could feel deeply for and with them until something was done. Thirdly there was material help… He asked for their (the Assembly's) help and for the help of their constituents all over England and he asked for the awakening of conscience. They would not forget and he could not forget that their Master was a Jew, a non-Aryan. They thought in their hearts that if they saw their Master in sorrow they would wish to help him, but it was right to remember the parable that their Master uttered of judgment and what He said when He rebuked certain disciples: 'For I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and ye took me not in: naked and ye clothed me not: sick and in prison and ye visited me not.' When the disciples in defending themselves asked what he meant, the Master added: 'Verily I say unto you, in as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me'. He was convinced that their attitude in England and in the Church of England to the needs of those suffering non-Aryan Christians and members of the Jewish race was the test of their attitude to their Master himself. It was because of that that he felt so deeply and that he asked them to give their prayers and sympathy and their material help.
The motion was carried. [191]
The Bishop of Chichester followed this move with a plea for more vigorous
Government action in his maiden speech in the House of Lords, on July 27, 1938.
He began with a strong condemnation of the Nazi persecution:
"I cannot understand - and I know many Germans - how our own kinsmen of the German race can lower themselves to such a level of dishonour and cowardice as to attack defenceless people in the way that the National-Socialists have attacked the non-Aryans. <77>
He then pleaded with the Government to follow up the initiative of President Roosevelt by increasing its facilities for training younger refugees in Great Britain, by providing greater scope for settlement in the Colonies, and by persuading the Dominions to open their doors more widely. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs assured him that the Government would do what it could. But Dr. Bell remarked a few weeks later in his Diocesan Gazette:
"It is almost as hard to understand the seeming apathy with which the fate of the Jews and the non-Aryan Christians is being regarded by the people of the British Empire… These non-Aryans can no longer be called 'refugees' for they have as yet no country of refuge. We emphasize the responsibility of the British Empire in this connection, because the British Colonies and the British Dominions cover the larger part of the whole available globe. It seems to us impossible, both on the grounds of charity and on the grounds of statesmanship, that the doors can remain forever shut." [192]
Resolutions adopted by the Presbyterian Church of England exposed the danger of anti-Semitism existing in England in those days. In 1937, the General Assembly stated: