IS THE WORLD TOO DULL?

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 88, 8 January 1919, Page 6

IS THE WORLD TOO DULL?

PLfeA I'OR HKTUjtN TO THE PICTURESQUE. - "It is a commonplace now to contrast the present with things as they were ' before the wa,r," says the t "Church ; Times." "but among all. the changes there is , one that sometimes escapes attention. The war has brought back colour and >picturesqueness to a world that was tending to become very grey and dull. It would not be easy to exaggerate the dullness, from one point of view, of the last fifty or- sixty years. Probably at no time' in the history of ; England has there been so much public ; spirit, so" much unselfish eerrice of the State, and. so little corruption,'os in the Victorian times.' But with' ell these many-virtues the Victorian statesmen lacked one tiling. They made., no ap-' peal to the imagination. Their careers possessed no element of the picturesque. "But for vSOine' years now things have : been changing. The war has only hastened whilh had already'begun. We have seen the revival of the type-we use the word.in no.derogatory>Bense—of the political adventurer. ■ His opportunity has come again. Among the .politicians of, the present day there are several who, however much we may dislike .their principles, have at least the merit of being interesting. They are the men , whose.future it is impossible to predict. '. •- Life. Glows 1 with Colour. . f : "There are other's.-also, not .in', the • political world, to whom the war has provided- iiiiidraameil-of OTWrtumties;. D'Annunzio, for example, !;tlie>- Italian ■ poet and novelist,' who, ini..nd\:ancedmiddle life, has become one of "his conntry's most heroic airmen. In him. the; ■ world of action and the world, of thousht,. i which had tended to become; divorced, havo heen again united Life generally, indeed, has become irradiated with a new and splendid'ligM. Even the dullness ; of ordinary .politics begins like a cloud in the sunset, to rlow. with colour. "But in this new and vivid interest tho Churcn has, atpresent, no part • or. lot. -We hear people talk , of the small . influence it asserts over the minds of men, and many are eagerly seeking the reason ami the cure: We suggest that the cause may partly be the very small appeal'that the. English Church makes to the imagination: iiwn do not find it interesting. They have nothing; pnrticular T'ainsf it, but they raws- it by on ■ the'other side. 'We have left far behind the days when men ..wanted something xWUleand «*«.■ ..Men J™. ra » re now by imagination, and it is /to the man or the institution that can capture ■tfie imagination that the:Mnre -belongs TI-β Church ought not to be lacking in illlS, -- Deadly Respectability, . 7 :'. ' "Wo produco as* leaders men who are i typical of the demure respectability of Anglicanisjii, and are as devoid of glam- ; our or ronmnco as a town councillor or an alderman. Almost' the' only leader we havo who possesses something of thnt mysterious quality which clings to all ; B-ent leaders of men is a- nuaonorr b shop,; the Bishop of Zanzibar. .. Pcturesqueness we have abandoned ] to the > Srareh of Borne. It is possible tlmt : many of our leaders-are too «<>••••; one wishes to push aside tho.oldcM en. But their function is not to lr,<l. it,is to exercise tho divine gift of counsel ■■ , "For leadership there is.'.needed * . iivo energy,'and something of-the son it -KSre; exactly.tho« gifts, ind«d, • that seldom survive middle aee.'■" ! what we need now is leadership. Gnen hat the Church will once M apperi •• {00. Anxious- to save her. life she. may , lose it." ... ■■ •■■ ■