Your charity shines light over darkness

THE great festival of Easter, celebrated in this country today – and a week from now in mainly Orthodox Ukraine – reminds us of the duties of charity, generosity and forbearance urged on us 2,000 years ago by the founder of the Christian religion (and indeed supported by the other major faiths). Feed the hungry. Give shelter to the homeless. Comfort those who mourn. Refuse to answer evil with evil, but instead overcome it with good.

And you, the readers of The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail, have remembered these injunctions, pouring your generosity into our appeal to help the stricken people of Ukraine.

They have been terrorised, bombed, massacred, driven from their homes and left unable to provide for themselves by a barbaric invasion. But they have also found human kindness.

By last night you had responded marvellously, giving more than £11million with which experienced charities can provide solid, immediate help to those who need it most. Again and again over the years, we have asked for your aid in good causes, and you have responded with your commitment and with money that you often cannot easily spare, especially now in these straitened times of inflation, harsh energy prices and rising tax.

In this case, the aid is for a country that few Britons have visited or know. Yet those who constantly accuse the British people of xenophobia or narrowmindedness must acknowledge that these donations have been given as readily as they would have been for any British person in similar trouble.

This is a charitable nation, and its people’s willingness to help in all parts of the world, when called on, is one of the things that make it great. This Easter day celebrates a great victory of life over death, of goodness over evil and light over darkness. It is heartening to see that, despite so many changes in our way of life, this most fundamental belief still flourishes. Happy Easter.