CREATOR AND CRITIC.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 240, 7 October 1916, Page 14

CREATOR AND CRITIC.

" A STODY IK PERFECTION. A man worked in hie garden. In three years he had created his garden oat of waste land. He had fought the wild and had won his desire by persistent labour. To him, the garden was a miracle. He remembered the stubborn field, and the sight of this 'blossoming soil wae to him a source of conatatit joy. < But when his friend came to see the miracle, be nodded carelessly and began to talk of the gardens he had seen— age-old, wonderful gardens of marvellous 'beauty. -' * The man listened and frowned, and then he eaid:— <' "Yon should hare eeen this jjace three years ago." "My dear fellow," his friend replied, "that has nothing to do with it. Beauty is not relative; it is absolute." But when his friend had gone, the man smiled and shrugged his shoulders, and returned to the joy of his garden. A mother took her little eon* to a friend's house. Her eon wu two years old, and had a vocabulary of more than twenty -words. And after the mother had gone, the friend said,- "How can people brinff up children like that? He got jam all over his face, and he kept asking for cake." And the report of that criticism was presently carried back to the mother. "Yee, I know," the mother said; "tut it aeenu co wonderful to mc that he should be able to do and say the things he does. A year ago he was so tiny and helpless, and now his intelligence is simply astounding." : And afterwards the mother demised the friend who had criticised hex little son, and always spoke of her with pity. Once in a great emergency, an island nation raised an immense army to fight on foreign soH. In eighteen months the army was in being, trained, equipped and provided with all the munitions of •war. Then there were some who eaid "la it not wonderful that we ehould have brought this army into bcinst" But there were others -who pursed their lips and looked very wise and maid that everything could have been done better and more rapidly. It is reported, however, that the army fought magnificently. . ' After God had created the world, the. thing He had done best looked about him and called-God a fool. But no one has yet heard whether or not God was greatly discouraged J T) Bereeford, in "Westminster Gazette." '