SIR THOMAS MORE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 91, 17 March 1936, Page 2

SIR THOMAS MORE

HIS UTOPIA AND OURS. On Sunday Miss N. E. Ockenden lectured, in the Theosophical Hall, Church Street, on “Sir I homas More —His Utopia and Ours.” After referring to the recordings of occult historians, she briefly outlined the life and character of the author of, Utopia, the history of the times and the effect of the Renaissance upon the Church in England. She then dwelt upon the principal features of Utopia: Cominunity life with all possessions held in common; conditions of labour with only six hours per day of compulsory work; the foil;' and ingloriousness of war; and perrect freedom in matters of worship and religious belief. The lecturer said: “Almost every advance in justice, in education, in religious tolerance and in social life during the last 400 years was foreshadowed in More’s Utopia; and yet. 20 years aeo the world was engaged in the most*, frightful war that ihi6 civilisation lias ever known, in d for the last four years unprecedented financial depression and unemployment have brought untold misery. What does it all mean P Hare we outlawed some barbarities only- to make room for others? AATiy are' the scientists abusing their genius to find new poison gases, and further means of.destroying human lifeP AA’ith all our vision we are blind, with all our education we are ignorant, until we discover that, in a way not easily perceived on the suiface we share a common life as truly as we breathe a common air. Thomas More pictured an unselfish society, and little would have remained to be done had you and I and the millions like us been able to realise that though we as individuals think we'have opposing interests, yet those opposing interests are only superficial, and underneath and within there is a community of interests and a unity of life, so that it is really true that to injure another is to injure onself. If we are all to conceive a new Utopia-, 1 think in mine there shall be a humanity which realises four things: (1) That selfishness is beneath the dignity of a human being; (2) that there is nothing in this -world or the next of wljich w r e need be afraid; (3) that we men and tvomen need not work only in our own strength, but that there are reservoirs of power upon which servers may draw—and each may be a server —so that no difficulty is too great for us to face if we will but tap those reservoirs. (4) That everyone is divine as well as human —that now. already, there is the light of God in every man and woman, however thickly veiled it may be, and so our task is verily 'to become what we are’ and to have faith in our fellow beings.” In concluding, the lecturer said: “All our lives we have recognised four kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable, animal and human. The Theosophical message tells of a fifth -—the super-human kingdom. This fifth kingdom is as real as the four preceding it, and you and I are certain to pass into it one day; let us write our Utopias in thought even though they may never be set up in type—we must press on with our human work knowing that the superhuman awaits us.”