SERMON BY BISHOP NELIGAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12279, 25 May 1903, Page 6

SERMON BY BISHOP NELIGAN

THE MAKING OF CHARACTER.

INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY.

The Right Rev. Dr. Neligan, Bishop of Auckland, preached a powerful sermon last evening at St. Mary's pro-Cathedral, in the presence of a crowded congregation, basing his discourse on the words, " Where ' there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepth the law, happy is he," Proverbs xxix. 18. The proverb was one which arrested the attention. It appealed to the strong British race, and this the more readily because the average Briton would at onct take exception to the first part of the proverb and fall into cordial agreement with the second part. The average man of British blood was not attracted by visions, he was not over fond of poetry, and he did not believe very much in ideals. But when the law was invoked he readily agreed. He would be inclined to say, "I am a plain practical man, I have to work hard every day. Away with your visions. Give me that which is practical and real and strong. Talk about the law and duty, and things that I come across every day, and I am with you. But when you begin to talk about seeing visions and dreaming dreams, about poetry and ideals, it is different. We British are a practical poople, and can't put up with it." Tlio average Briton wanted to be taught the practical, not the ideal. But that was not possible. We could not possibly have the practical unless we had also got the ideal. THE LESSON OF HISTORY. He could review page after page of the history of the British Empire, and not only so, but of every country of the world, and adduce proof after proof of the truth of the statement he ventured to submit, that in every clime and every age the men who benefited their day and generation, or who benefited those that came after them, were idealists. The laws 011 the statute-book 01 our own Empire that had proved most beneficial, either at Home or in the colonies, were placed there by the efforts of men who saw visions and dreamed dreams, and translated their visions into action. Every colon) of which we were proud to-day formed a part of the Empire, as the result of some great and splendid dream of some man winforesaw the possibilities of British expansion. To talcs New Zealand as an instance. The benefits we enjoyed to-day were the result of the dreams which were dreamed by the early settlers. The ideal could not be separated from the practical. When we talked about poetry we were confronted with what was called the practical common sense of the British people. They did no. care very much about poetry. Yet Ifo submitted that the man who was not a poet did not understand what life was. THE VALUE OF POETRY. Poetry was a necessity of life to live life aright. He was not referring to the jingling, jangling rhymes, of some pot-house rhymster. He did not speak of a jingle, suoh as any man might put together, but took the word in its fundamental sense. How often, when reading a poem, we said to ourselves, Dear me. I never thought of it in that way, and yet it is all true." What had the poet done? He had taken the ordinary, the common, the practical, and had translated the ordinary j into the extraordinary, the practical into I the ideal, the common into the uncommon. J By the power of his art he had reconstructed something. In "The King and the Book" • Browning told of the finding of an old volume on a book stall in Florence. He said that there was a story of it, and, with exquisite sarcasm, he related the incident of his coming to London and of his efforts .to get others to listen to the tale the book was telling. Time after time he met with [ a rebuff, but he took the story out of the book, and made it into something wo could ; all read with pleasure and profit. Rudyard I Kipling, too, furnished us with an illustra--1 tion. He took us to an old Scotch engineei, ' down in the bowels of a shaky old ocean i trpmp, and made him interpret the throbbing !of the engines. In that greasy, grimy smelly I place poetry was present, for out of the hard, i pushing, puffing, throbbing of the engines i the engineer was making a sweet song. So, 1 in life, the man who was not a poet was not I living his life aright. The man who did j not determine with the graoe of God to > make his life into something great and noble, j an fit for a human being to be proud of, 1 failed entirely to understand the dignity of ! living at all. THE FAILURES OF SUCCESS.

! What were we making out of oui lives? i Were wo only making success? Sometimes j success was the worst thing that could befall I a man. In the time of our wealth, our suci cms,, our prosperity, well might we pray, "Good Lord, deliver us." Often in pros- ! parous times it was more difficult to avoid I irhastlv failure than in the. time of adversity. I What should we make of lifoV Surely a i character that would endure. Character ; was tlio only thing wo ooukl leave behind us. And the character of each one of us deponded upon our ideals. Absolutely and j literally oliaractcj.*. depondod upon the vision

that was seen, the dream that was dreamed. Where was no such vision the individual perished so fa. as character was concerned, and this was hurtful to the national life. The nation was the poorer when the individual refused to see visions. Where there was no vision tho people perished. THE QUICKENING OF I.IFK. To the individual who had ever caught one glimpse of what God meant human life to be, just one sight of the vision glorious of what the Son of God intended human life to be, all life must- be irradiated afterwards. Such a lift* was quickened and strengthened, and from the individual the national life derived reflected strength. The proverb was cast in a mould which was necessary. The two parts could not be separated. The dreamer, the emotional man, as quite distinct from the man of action, was not of the same benefit to his nation, was not capable of developing the same strong character, as the man who, having seen the vision, translated the same into daily life.

RESPONSIBILITY GBEATKIt THAN DUTY. It was not enough to say that he alone was happy who kept the law; to talk about the dictates of duty. There was a higher law than duty. To take an illustration. A father might claim to be doing his duty towards his children if he saw that they had good clothes to their backs, good boots on their feet, and were given a start in life. Greater. than tliis, however, was the awful law of responsibility. The parent was responsible for tho thoughts of the child, for the character the child was going to produce, for the atmosphere of the home 'in which the child was going to grow up, for the bias of character with which the child would make his start in the world. Let the parent measure his duty by clothes and shoes and bread and butter; the limits of his responsibility remained immeasurable. But responsibility involved a privilege. Again, to take the parent as an illustration. A man or woman could not be got to understand the law of parental responsibility until the splendid privilege of parentage had been taught. Once a man was proud and glad of the fact that God had given him little ones to brighten and make happy his home, to provide a stimulus to work, something to cause him to think of better things if only for their sakes, then we saw one who was appreciating his privileges, capable of understanding the law of responsibility.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF EMPIRE. Within certain limits it was true for people to say of us in this colony, " The responsibility of Empire rests upon you, and you, and you." : The greatness of the Brijjfh Empire rested upon the shoulders of the individual. But it was no use telling a man that and expecting him to rise to the dignity of that statement unless he had been induced first of all ■ to, believe in the privilege of belonging to the British Empire. Similarly in the case of the Christian faith. Thatmorning, at the first ordination of priests he had takenan ordination full of solemnity, awful in its responsibility of the Maori race told them in his sermon what some of them almost dreaded to believe, namely, that if there were apostacy on the part of the Maori Christians, there was a measure of responsibility for it on the part of the pakeha Christians. If the Maori failed to live up to his responsibility,\was it, or was it not, because the white man showed him the example of failure first? It would ill-become him to pronounce judgment in such a matter, but the words sank deeply into his heart.

THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING CHRISTIAN. It was not use telling a man, whether white or brown, that he had to face responsibility as a Christian unless the man believed in the privilege of being a Christian. It was no use saying to a man, "You are a child of God, and because you became so from the moment of your baptism therefore you are to live as becomes the child of the Father," if he were not prepared to believe in the privilege of it. Such a privilege, almost of necessity, involved one in dreaming dreams and seeing visions. It was when there was such belief that the Christian became enthusiastic rfbout religion. Enthusiastic about religion in the twentieth century! Many found it difficult to imagine.-

DECAT OP RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIAII. " Why," said the preacher," we may be enthusiastic about golf, about yachting, about racing, about the curse of the British Empire, gambling, we may be enthusiastic about anything and everything almost, but you can't make lis enthusiastic about our souls. In fact, it is rather indelicate in the twentieth century to talk about a person's soul. We have been educated out of it in cheap manuals; we have got beyond it; it belongs to our grandmothers." But he who had seen the vision could not be otherwise than enthusiastic. Enthusiasm was a Greek word, meaning "Full of the God." All life was a great sacrament. Life was splendid and noble and grand when full of God.