We Are Blazing Our Own Trails – Info Eternity

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 145, 21 June 1941, Page 6

We Are Blazing Our Own Trails - Info Eternity

I CFFORTS may Vie made to make us | think alike (and "Thinking Alike | in Wartime" wv.iM be a Rood title 'for another I.esiie Wcatherhead | book). dress alike, walk in step, and , cheer or groan in chorus, but nothing v. ill ever make us inwardly identical. I By Rev. C. Y'/. Chandler i About that boot; I told you of a ■'"oytnF'M awhii-h f purchased for f>d. and which had the original ! owner'.-. name on ihe flyleaf. I •wonder if he's hvincr now. .1 doubt it. It's 'he ho'd signature? of a man , who -i I'liis 11> have been pretty sure iof h ; m~r-lf. ijf t!f -nt of his own opinions. T<> think that at no time in the past, or in the future, will any- ; one ever sum his name exactly like j that. Wo should be startled by the ! realisation of our own distinctive | individualities. We Think Differently | We may say the same prayers, ! sine; the same hymns and read the same books, but we will always retain our distinctive; interpretations <>f those prayer-:, hymns, and books. : This will impress one. and that will impress another. Wo may laugh : and cry .alike, but we'll never laugh land cry at the same things, or as a re.adi ■>;' the -nme stimulus. Tn a ■ pictere theatre I've often had a ■ lump in my throat while the fellow ' alongside me has been bursting his | sides with laughter. I Very few people have a permanent j interest in you except yourself, and the same applies to all of us. We I are very lonely souls in the last I analysis. We blaze our own trails [into eternity. I Such individuality as that of which i f have already hinted is not. shared iby the rest of animate creation, j l)ocs and cats, and horses and cows may answer to the call of names ! which we have given them, but they i have no baptismal rites of their own, nor do they write to their sweethearts. Not even in the crudest fashion of our remotest ancestors do they thus communicate their thoughts one to another. Nomenclature is an entirely human study and pastime. J The moo of a cow may be known to j her this-year's calf, as the crow of a | cock may be known in the "harem." I but the sound of a voice has a charm I for mankind. It is the decipherable j signature of the soul and is as distinct from the rest of mankind as the gait, or the laugh, or the sigh, or the signature. Though the latter may not too easily be read, it is at :once attachable to some distinctive personality. Dew drops, flowers and sheep are i all alike to the undiscerning eye of man, within their respective spheres, but not so a human personality through the varied modes of its expression. That's Why It's Sacred It's because it can never be repeated that it is so sacred. If j everybody else were just like me I am sure' I should go mad. From whence, then, comes this infinite variety if not from God? What but a divine intelligence could display such amazing originality? Nothing that man ever thinks or does is absolutely original. j "There is nothing new under the sun," says the writer of the Book of Proverbs. Our own words and thoughts are repeatedly coming j back to us with an "alienated majesty." Outside of God there can be nothing original. The first child who dropped a pebble into a pool in order to watch the ripples extend had as much to do with the invention of wireless as Marconi himself, and the first man or child who observed a spark kindled by the accidental colliding of two stones, and consciously repeated the process, had as much to do with the development of the use of electricity as Faraday or Edison. It is recorded that Moses wrote with "the finger of God." The same can be said of every inspired utterance of prophet, poet or seer ever since. The fundamentalist is thus far right when he says that God wrote the Bible. He also wrote all that is true in the Bhagavad-Gita or the Koran, or in the writings of Confucius or Laotze. He has written everything that's true. Your signature is the truest part of you. He wrote that, «joo. You write with the "finger or God," as Moses did, whenever you write what is true. The devil, who "loveth a : lie," writes all that is untrue. He is working overtime just now. j In our outward parts we are all i the blurred signatures of God. That's ! why human personality is so sacred. When men begin to honour the living as much as they honour the dead, i then and only then will they begin to honour God. Read the I:3f)th Psalm and you'll find that He fashioned all i your members when as yet there was ! none of them. Hence, as in their creation, so in their functioning, when truth is the guiding star, they ' work and move as parts of Him. | Your Work in the World j The worst that, society can do is to warp this individuality. It cannot rob us of it. The mark that you • make on this world may not be weightier than a grain of sand, or ! more indelible than breath upon a windscreen, but it's vour mark for ( all that, and although it may be i forged it cannot be repeated. The individual must never plot | against the State. That is treason. I Neither must the State plot against the individual. That is sacrilege, i The State exists to safeguard the : rights of the individual, apart from the multiplicity of whom it is entirely , non-existent. i Drop a twig on an ant hill and the i whole colony will set to work to ' move it. The welfare of all is bound lup with the welfare of each. That , truth is for every sluggard to learn, j By the consideration of this fact all , our present turmoil is accounted for. There is only one quarrel I have with many Christian alarmists of to-day, and that is the insistence with which they assert that Christianity can be submerged or killed •straight out by any modern "ism." Such talk is utterly faithless and unworthy. Through many changing orders lias the Faith survived, "and : it will survive this one too, emerg- : ing richer and purer from the har--1 rowing experience.