THE GOSPEL OF THE COMMONPLACE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3141, 30 October 1922, Page 8

THE GOSPEL OF THE COMMONPLACE.

• lust over nineteen hundred years ago, when another civilisation was developing monstrous inequalities, where the masses everywhere were being ground into hopeless slavery, there arose in a .Jewish village an unlearned carpenter, who, scorning the orthodoxies and ritualisms of the time, preached to laborers and fishermen the gospel of the Fatherhood of God, of the equality and brotherhood of men. who taught His. disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom here on earth. The college professors sneered at Him, the orthodox preachers denounced' Him. but the common people heard Him gladly. He was reviled 1 as a. dreamer, as a disturber, as a "communist." and to-day would probably have been called a "Bed Fed.," and finally organised society became so alarmed that they crucified Him between two thieves. But the word went forth, and. spread by fugitives and slaves, made its . way against power and against persecution till it revolutionised the world, and out of the rotting old civilisation brought the germ of the new. Then the privileged classes rallied again, carved the effigy of the man of the people in the courts and on the tombs l of kings, in His name consecrated inequality, and wrested His gospel t'o the defence of social injustice. We can see the same great ideas of a common fatherhood, of a common brotherhood, in (he world to-day when the peoples, of the many nations are striving for peaceful methods to replace the barbarous wars, but when a mighty wind meets a strong current, it does not portend' a smooth sea. and whoever will think of the opposing tendencies will appreciate the gravity of the social problems the civilised world most meet. He will also understand the meaning of Christ's words when be said: "Think not I am come to send peace on earth, f come not to send peace, but a sword." Now this Avord sword docs not' mean the materia! thing which Mi' Massey seems to think it does, but that the word of God is as a sword making a clear demarcation, between the spiritually and materially minded people, driving them asunder into two hostile camps. We can hardly yet understand the real meaning of those words, hut Christ certainly also said: "I came not to destroy, but to give life." Man was created to subdue the earth, not to rob and murder his fellowmen, and it takes men of great courage to preach this doctrine of "Peace- "nd goodwill" and live up to it.