HOSPITAL SUNDAY.
The growth, of an institution having a purely altruistic object — one with which no partisan or controversialist can quarrel — is a thing that does the heart good. Such an institution is Hospital Sunday, which, since it has taken concrete shape and been forced upon the public mind, has proved of steadily increasing usefulness. Public generosity lies latent, just as the popular mind is often inarticulate, until some outlet for activity, some means of expression, is provided. When that is attained, the power of the public purse, equally with that of the popular voice, makes itself felt. Hospital Sunday, and the support it has received, supply a case in point. Those who have imposed on themselves the by no means ltght duties ot providing a Hospital Sunday for 'the people of Wellington are the bands, the nurses, and the A aval Volunteers, and they will be pleased to see that those to whom the appeal was made have not failed to respond. The collections show a substantial advance on last year's. If the same active initiative, in the interests of the common weal, is repeated in years to come, the public will continue to respond, and Hospital Sunday will become here as great and valuable an institution as it is in the Australian Commonwealth. As was pointed out by Sir Robert Stout — who has again lent to the cause the weight of his position and eloquence — there is something more in social life than the mere pecuniary bond. Institutions like Hospital Sunday should influence not merely the temporary state of the pocket, but our whole attitude to the people among whom we dwell. The test of a civilised people is care and consideration for others. Giving is not always charity, though no doubt it is the best possible prima facie evidence thereof. The high ideal is that love for others should be behind the gift; that it should find expression in all walks of life ; and that it should lead us onward and upward to the charity that exalteth a nation.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 135, 5 December 1904, Page 4
Word Count
342HOSPITAL SUNDAY. Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 135, 5 December 1904, Page 4
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