AN HONEST MAN

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 294, 18 October 1922, Page 5

AN HONEST MAN

It was one of the earliest "Anzac Days," and a huge audience filled the Town Hail to overflowing. The principal speaker was one of New Zealand's -most eminent divines. Not having heard him before, I could not help wonder'ng, what h-8 attitude, as a professed follower oi the Prince of Peace would be/ Peace! There was no such word in his dictionary! Endowed with a splendid voice and with dramatic eloquence fiar beyond the ordinary, ha I used all his magnificent powers for I war-—'to the bitter end. Drunken Uiß wine of Imperialism, Jh.c rose to frenzied heights, and the* burden cf his insistent cry was, "More men and yet more men, to kill and be killed, Tor the houou.v and glory of the Empire, in a just and righteous war!" And I went ay/ay, think'ug of the supreme pity of it all.

This Hjj-ih _. who could so move &»d thrill the people, this vital personality, so arrogant in his spiritual strength, so narrow, where he might have been broad, so distorted in h's vision—just a blind leader of the blind. « # * * Last Sunday night, I heard the same man again. The same man, did I say? Instead of a pompous ecclesiastic, filled witli narrow intolerance and spiritual pride, flinging his insoleat maxim .'"My country, right or wrong!" in the faces of those who dared to think otherwise, I found a MAN— chastened, and most marvellously broadened, A raau v. r ho hi sane, brave language, made his new "Confession of Faith." There was nothing flamJjoyant or melo-draxnatic about it. it was juj*t a plain, courageous ■statement of facts. Hb had seen the face o£ Truth, stripped of all the j)oor, pitiful veilings of lies thrown over her in the name o' Patriotism.

There was a scathing indictment of; ttie Secret Diplomacy that in 1914! dragged an Empire into war with aj lie on its lips, because of a secret i agreement, made behind the people's ! backs. There were words of pity for; the poor unthinking fools, who even I at this late hour in the day, allow j themselves to be made the,victims of-i a lying Press. Words..of sconi for New Zealand's PHme Minister, #11 too ready to dance , to the piping -of the most irrespon- j sitiie, fligh f y statesman who has ever' guided England's destines. * * * . * And through it all there was.a not<*j of High Purpose—"the firm resolve of a determined soul," to Stand Fast, and to be true at all and every cost, to the Inner Light that he had found tn these later years. Thei'e was a challenge, in every -,vord to the forces of Anti-Chr-'st from j the man who, AT LAST, was preaching the Real Christ, the Prince of Peace! It was an inspiring thing to listen to —just the fine, simple words, oi one who cast his old identity aside forever.

%** . * Comparing the man of 1915 with the man of 1922, I think it must I<q conceded by all who can see the Realit : *s that lie beyond and at the back of all this vveltsr of turmoil,* that in Dr. Gibb, ot St. John's, New Zealand possesses one x>l her bravest, most broad-minded churchmen, a man who has the courage of his convictions. A New Spiritual Leader? Perhaps— if he is prepared (and I think he is) to "Go all the way, to the end."— OUTSIDER.