I was moved to tears by the report in The Star (Christmas Eve edition) of the visit by the Lennons to our “beautiful” Prime Minfster.

It seemed particularly appropriate that on the birthday of “the Prince of Peace,” these peace ambassadors should be granted an audience of nearly an hour (from the scheduled 15 minutes) with our highest elected official. As Lennon observed after the meeting, we Canadians “don’t know how lucky” we are. “If all politicians were like him, there would be world peace.”

That’s the line that produced the tears.

It reminded me of the interview in Weekend magazine (Dec. 6, 1969) with Dr. Edward Johnson, moderator of the Presbyterian Church and head of Canairelief.

Asked if he had ever talked with our prime minister about Biafra he replied, “I’ve never succeeded in having, though I’ve wanted to and tried to get a good conversation with the Prime Minister.”

That’s what made me cry: our Canadian chief executive had time for an hour with the man voted by the British press “clown of the year,” but no time for Canada’s relief operation of the year.

And I cried because we “Christian Canadians” wanted it that way and things haven’t changed much since Bethlehem or Calvary.

Lennon’s visit to our Prime Minister has proved his point: “We Beatles are more popular than Christ.” In Christian Canada, at Christmas 1969, he’s right. But come to think of it, in religious Jerusalem, 33 years after the first Christmas, so was Barabbas!

KEN CAMPBELL President, The Campbell-Reese Evangelistic Association Milton, Ont.