HAS ASHBUTON A SOUL?

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7818, 10 June 1909, Page 2

HAS ASHBUTON A SOUL?

A LONG-DEAD HOPE REVIVED

(Contributed.) It is said that hope springs eternal m the human breast, and certainly the present writer—a bit of a cynic, m his way—after going a second time to hear Mr Wragge at the Oddfellows' Hall, rejoiced m a newfound' hope, and was fain to admit that all was not yot vanity, and that when Shakespeare wrote that "There is a soul of goodness m things evil," he was probably right. .•'■... , Strange though it may seem, the hope lay, not m Mr Wragge, but m his audience; for Ashburton, which has so long killed the prophets, and stoned them that were sent unto it, showed, j m its reception and appreciation .of I the astronomer, that its fight was not yet gone out. It is true that the flame revealed was but a feeble and a flickering one, but m a town that for so many days and so many years has had no interest m legitimate, instructive and educative entertainments,- has taken no cognisance of anything with the spirit of philosophic research, or imaginative stimulation attached to it, and has all but turned its back on the finest m. music, art, and the drama — not to speak of literature at allr-in a place such as this; the success of Mr Wragge has, to •me, been nothing short of marvellous. For is it not a' fact' that .fully fifty per cent of the lecturer's Tuesday night's audience returned to gain further enlightenment and knowledge from him on Wednesday evening? In this small gleam of light •let all who hope against hope for the uplifting and progress of the public soul of Ashburton find encouragement for their faith 1 ■ As St. Paul so finely . puts it, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence, of things not seen." Fatalism, predestination, morbid depression, and all the varying forms of hopelessness bred by a belief m the power/of evil, and encouraged m their growth by a stagnant environment, can be proved to be impotent by the ' simple effort to realise what hope < is, and to demonstrate what.it means. The great Apostle, m his writings, has made it clear that hope is no mere dreaming; that the unexpected may happen, but that it is rather the expectation of being able to^ realise more fully the lesson already learned from faith; and, m this connection, is it too much to cherish the k -hope — the belief almost—that even m Ashburton good will ultimately triumph? Is it too much to nourish, cherish and preserve the faith that m the near future the people of this materially prosperous and fruitful county will ,awake to a sense of the importance of the higher things of life, and to a proper comprehension of the old truth that "man does not live by bread alone "? As an erstwhile cynic, I put the question hesitatingly—doubtfully. Who knows? .-". In"The Garden of Proserpine;" Swinburne writes: "We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be .., ' : ' That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the -weariest river ■ Winds somewhere to the sea.". Can we hope that the old things will pass away, and that spiritually all things will become new m Ashburton m this decade, or even m the lifetime of the present generation, or will the next glacial period, forecasted by Mr Wragge, be with ,us before the .ship's course is turned, and summer seas are sailed upon? Will the Public Library still show the same paucity 2,000 years hence, or will the earnest exhortations of the Guardian, year, m and year out. have aroused the people to their need ere then ?'. Who knows ? ' The pursuit of perfection is the pursuit of sweetness^ and light, but, echoeth the cynic, " men loved darkness rather than light,"—need more be said? ■ •