TWO KINDS OF SUNSHINE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21243, 15 August 1934, Page 18

TWO KINDS OF SUNSHINE

PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL 187 PROFESSOR J. MACMILLAN BROWN, Chancellor, University of New' Zealand.] (Under the auspices of the Sunlight League of New Zealand.) 111. - This is by no means the first period of depression the world has experienced. But it is the longest and most widespread; it has the whole of mankind in its grip. For it has features and causes that differentiate it from all that precede. It not only follows a gre and exhausting war; but it has driven every nation and community into self-isolation and so destroyed that circulation of trade, which is the life-blood of mankind when organised into national units. Worst of all, the world is at the mercy of the armament-makers, whose continued existence depends upon keeping the nations at war. Up till the recent world-war, victory was won by the capacity of a talented general. Thereafter it went into the hands of the maker of munitions and especially the chemist; and the maker of war materials, in order to live, must keep the nations in a ferment of jealousy and hatred. There is little chance of this depression finally passing, when mankind is the seed-bed of the plague of war. Curative Power of the Sun It is the same with individuals; they who cannot rid themselves of evil passions, like envy and jealousy and hatred, have no chance of being healthy and happy; for these emotions are intrinsically suicidal. The prime condition of health is to look with a kindly eye on all with whom we have to come into contact and to bear with a smile the buffets that the struggle of life inevitably involves. No vital organ will function well unless it has the ready gleam of this individual sunshine. Few of us but have felt the marvellous curative power of the sun, when disease threatens. It is not so easy to persuade men and -women that the personal sunshine - of kindliness has the same curative power. The essence of "the bedside manner" that gives a medical man his success, is the smiling, symSathetic attitude to his patients, [ost of us fail to realise that every man is his own patient where passions are concerned and can be his own doctor, and that the most efficient medicine is beneficence. If the Sunlight League realises its name and purpose o the full, it must aim at encouraging constant use of not only physical sunshine, but also the far more important spiritual sunshiny it must teach and preach, especially during such periods of depression, the gospel of optimism; whenever any grievance tends to fix itself on the mind as a worry, the first duty no' only to one's neigl.bour, but to oneself, is to laugh it off. For the worst of all diseases is worry; it is the main . basis of most other diseases; for it deranges the vital functions; it is truly the most suicidal of all ailments a human " eing can be tortured by. The mar curative influence of enthusiastic work is that it sterilises the mind against worry. Where work is not earnest it lacks this medicative power; it is in fact one of the truest sources of worry. Carlyle was a noted preacher of the gospel of work; but unfortunately he forgot the main element in it that makes it worth gospelling; he surrounded himself with an atmosphere of ceaseless self-harass-ment. The occasions on which I came into close proximity to him made me sorry for the fate of her who had to be his mate throughout life. It was little wondc. that both succumbed long years before they might have lived, and worked. Fear and Suspicion Perhaps the most pernicious of all emotions is fear, with its; usual "Sequel, suspicion; it destroys all wholesome relationships. It is this that those who are eager to stir up war amongst nations and enmities between individuals, especially appeal to. A Sunlight League should endeavour to bring about friendly intercourse amongst its members, and to impress them that all backbiting and evil speaking are the enemies of sunshine and health, and that it is the evil speaker who .suffers the most. There is no surer .sign of a happy existence and fate, than to live and die with a smile on the face. Whatever may come of your projects, even if they should fail, a kindly look on the countenance reveals that they have beneficence in them; President Roosevelt is a living example of this truth; his New Deal has much in it that may ultimately fail; but his countrymen feel that that winsome sunshine ever on his face, in spite of the long paralysis of the legs he has had to ork with, means beneficence in all the schemes he frames and tries to carry out. This is the secret of his popularity.