THE BOOK OF LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 69, 22 March 1934, Page 6

THE BOOK OF LIFE.

A STUDY IN INTERPRETATION.

(By F.C.J.)

The usual preface to a book on the reccnt advances made in science is a stressing of the wonder of the times in which we live. It is scarcely possible, so the writer will say, to dogmatise, since so great is the onrush of science that the vague, half-formulated theorisings of yesterday are the accepted commonplaces of to-day, only to be received to-morrow with the contempt of familiarity. Because we of 1934 live in the same surroundings as ever we did; because we think we do the same things that we have ever done in the same way; because we take what science has to offer with as little demur as investigation, we are not constantly aware of the age at all. In brief, because we live in the midst of change, we do not perceive it. But occasionally something jolts us out of our complacency. Something makes us think, not merely of the marvels of this age, but of the wonders yet to come

In a recent letter to the editor it was stated, inter alia, that "in England only a few years ago they got some strange reactions when tuning in. They began to catch something that they themselves had distributed two weeks previously." From that, to the layman anv'way, it would appear that to some extent light and sound had given up their secret.s. An accident this time, perchance; but it may happen on some future occasion, after man lias consciously directed his painstaking genius towards the problem, that such an event will not have been an accident. As the writer of the letter suggests, it may be that some day we will be able to recover from the air again the speech that Queen Elizabeth made to her soldiers when they marched off to meet the Spanish Armada. More Exhilarating Possibilities. It may be that some day we will be able to view not merely the present as we do now, but the distant past, as would a dweller on a fixed star—as though the centuries that separated them were but an evening gone. For so stupendously distant are the stars that a being on the nfearest of them would see this world as it was in the time of C'aesar. Hut wider and more exhilarating still are the possibilities. What if it were possible to harness and bring back thought in the same way? Nothing is really lost, so science teaches. Light travels on and on, round the vast circle of the universe. Sound waves do the same, and have done since the first sound broke the stillness of time. If nothing is lost, thefi thought must also be speeding on, on to the furthest shores of a universe which knows no bounds. This is a staggering conception. What a mighty stream of knowledge to be tapped! Everything that all of the. people who ever lived have ever thought is somewhere in the air about our heads. Not merely what they said or did, but their inmost thoughts are waiting to' bo known, if only we knew the key that would unlock the door. What a host of vexed questions might be answered if this conccption, though called staggering, might some day prove to be true! Historians might have to rewrite their works; biographers might find that the characters they have built up and fondly believed in had feet of clay; autobiographcrs who are living might blush for shame. All spoken or written words would have to be scrutinised more strictly, and politicians at election times might find half their advantages swept away. Even religion might bo found to need revision; for if it were possible to know what Christ thought as he spoke on the Mount, the inheritance of the meek might be greater, the work of the peace maker more tangible.

"The Books Were Opened." And mention of the Bible I)rings us to the real point of this article. The same Bible, besides giving one of the most famous dissertations on morals of all time, contains many passages provocative of thought along the lines mentioned. Through Revelation, for example, runs the mention of "books"—the book of deeds, the book of life. One passage, chapter 20, verso 12, says: "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the 'books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works." Another like verse in Matthew, xii. 30, says: "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment." _ , Didactically to assume the ability to interpret such writings on the wall were a presumption; but a line of thought may be suggested. And tho suggestion is this: What if tho opening of the books of life should mean the ability to recall not only tho deeds and words of the dead about to be judged —that is, the capturing of light and sound as they constitute individual actions —but also of very thought itself, so that each life would be laid opeiHike a valley from the mountain tops? Books used in tho judgments of this earth contain entries most scrupulously exact and minute for the sake of justice as we know and administer it-. But if the dead, "small and great." lowly and mighty, are to appear for a" judgment that is to apply for all eternity. —whatever that judgment may mean — then how much more scrupulous, how much more precise, how infinitely more all-embracing would the material have to bo upon which judgment for all time would rest? In making such an awful decision a judge could afford to omit no detail, however unimportant, whether of word, deed or thought. No mere witness' account would bo sufficient, for such would bo an interpretation, and interpretations, though honest, may err.

True Basis for Judgment. From only one source could that knowledge come; and that source is the man's own life. 3STo false interpretation there would he possible —the life must speak for itself; for while it may be possible to deceive others in word and deed, a man may not deceive himself in his thoughts. And if judgment from what is written in the book of life means judgment of an individual by his own life, then thought will lie naked, without the cloak of deed and word.

This, then, to gather the threads together, is the argument. The experiment in wireless seemed to presage the return of light and sound waves; and with them, words and deeds. If words and deeds, why not thought, since nothing is lost and thoughts are things? Then followed the cryptic, thought-provocative verses from the Bible, in the tentative propounding of which the Toot, suggestion was that if words, deeds and thoughts ipiglit bo ordered back from the past, the entire lives of the dead, who must stand to be judged, might be made known—and only from the laying bare of eacli life would that knowledge be secured which would make the judgment truly just.