temporal and external happiness.  In a moment of universal travail, when hope   
contends with fear in the souls of so many millions of men, We have been   
greatly encouraged by the vision of new possibilities of beneficient action   
opened up to usthrough the presence near Us of your Distinguished Representative.  
Since the obligations of Christian charity towards the needy and the dispossessed  
have ever constituted a prior claim upon Our affections and resources as they  
have upon those of our predecessors, it is with particular satisfaction the We   
welcome Your Excellency's endeavors for the alleviation of suffering.  Our  
contemporaries follow with their heart-felt prayers, and posterity will hold  
in honored memory, all of those who, undeterred by immense difficulties,   
dedicate themselves tothe sacred task of staunching the flow of youthful blood  
upon the fields of battle, and to the comforting of civilian victims despoiled  
and afflicted by the cruel conditions of our day.  Blessed, indeed, are the   
peacemakers.
 
    
 
 
 And although one who with discerning surveys the present international   
scene can have no illusions as to the magnitude of the role which has been   
undertaken, We are convinced that it is in the interest of all that We should  
go forward with Our labors to the end that the days of grievous trial be shortened,  
preparing and straightening the way, levelling the mountains of anger which  
bar the road to understanding and filling up the valleys of distrust and  
suspicion which divide man from man