THE GLOOMY DEAN

Hokitika Guardian, 1 May 1937, Page 6

THE GLOOMY DEAN

BANISHING DEPRESSION.

SUGGESTED ANTIDOTES

A LONDON, April -7. After a silence of two and a-half years, the. Voice of Dr Inge was^ heard again in St.. Paul’s Cathedral last Sunday night. Once nicknamed “the gloomy,” ho had come back for the first time since his retirement, to plead for the ing of mental depression. A great, congregation filled the ,to "hear their former Dean. WHen he ■ had preached and the evening ser- * vice had ended, they still, waited. Many asked if they might speak t> him, and the verger’s reply was always the same—“l don’t know. Dr Inge" has so many people to see . . . • In the pulpit, to which he mounted with , quick, liglit steps, he was anything but tired. The words came as freshly, the gestures as freely, as t’hey did during his 23 years as Dean of St. 1 Paul’s’. The fount of Simple, lucid, English was unchoked. Straight from his retirement lie came with. his leisure thoughts*, taking his text from Proverbs—“ For as lie thinketh in his heart, so it be.” “ft is our leisure -thoughts,” he i said, “which in the long run fix our character.” ,

Then came many minutes, of counsel against brooding thoughts which would cut in the blind the channel of. mental depression. Day dreaming he called an insidious and fascinating pastime, but a common cause of mental depression, and mental depression was most common in the young, y. • „ ' - He had been struck? also, he said, by the frequency of. the fits of deep depression recorded in. ; the lives “of great men. What was called a very happy disposition might make for worldly success, but it might also be unfavourable to spiritual ambition. For that one sentence he seemed to be thinking, introspeetivelv, aloud. As if shrugging off llis own melancholy, he advised a struggle against mental depression, and against the harbouring of thoughts which might lead to “cor-

rupt conversation.” The reading of poetry, particularly the poetry of the New Testament,' was the antidote he offered. And with that there came a rebuke—‘Tt is quite astonishing how divine reading is neglected by young people, I noticed it when I was an examining chaplain. It has become worse since.” Five or sis; himdrecl people went away smiling at a paradox. The “gloomy” Dean had broken silence to tell them to read tlieir Bible in order to think cheerful thoughts.