" IN A FOOL'S PARADISE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13285, 18 September 1906, Page 6

" IN A FOOL'S PARADISE."

MENACE OF THE COLOURED

RACES.

SERMON BY THE REV. W. BEATTY.

An interesting sermon, dealing in a striking manner with passing events, was delivered by the Rev. W. Beatty, at St. Mark's Church, Remuera, on Sunday. Mr. Beatty selected as his text, St. Mark, xiii. 37, And what I say unto you, I say unto all, watch." In the coarse of bis remarks, the preacher said: The word translated "watch" really means "keep awake." The idea is not that we should leave our ordinary work, and busy ourselves with forecasts and speculations as to the great events which are coming, but that we should not allow ourselves to be lulled into a state of insensibility to movements which are profoundly affecting the world at large, and must sooner or later profoundly affect our own land and ourselves. It is not easy to keep awake. The claims of work and pleasure are inviting, the details of daily occupations and pursuits make large demands on our time and energy, and there is little leisure for reading and less for thought. And so what is merely personal and local tends to monopolise our attention, to make us absorbed in a routine which seems to us permanent and unchangeable. And we get frequent doses of soothing syrup in the shape .of, boasts of our wealth, prosperity, progress, enlightenment, assurances of our power, greatness, wisdom, courage, compliments on . our popular form ot government. our ' admirable laws, our free institutions, and so on. And so we are apt to think that the world will jog on comfortably and quietly for ever, and leave us free to make money easily and spend it freely, to do little work and enjoy a great deal of pleasure. , We, therefore i need to make an effort to awake, and to ' keep ourselves awake. The world is not jogging along comfortably. Everywhere are signs of radical changes, of movements which promise to be far-reaching in their effects. And the realm to which we ■ belong is threatened from without, and more dangerously threatened from within. Now all great changes in the thoughts, beliefs' and affairs of men, even if they are changes altogether in a right direction, which seldom, if ever, happens, have a serious element of peril. Men, in their zeal and their lia6te, in their indignation at evils and their desire for reforms, are apt to cast aside old faiths, old customs, old laws, old institutions, before they have discovered, established, and " brought into operation new ones, which can adequately and efficiently fill the place of the old. Hence there is an interval of chaos, confusion, disorder, uncertainty. And • that is pre-eminently true at the present time in matters religious, intellectual, political, and social. It is exceedingly rare at the present time to find any man, lay or clerical, who has any fixed and settled convictions, any consistent principles, well thought out and thoroughly tested, on which he tries to order his life. Most of lis are reeds shaken by the wind and swaying to every point of ' the compass. And it is this which gives a determined man, or a knot of determined men, such an undue and dangerous amount of power. Now the unsettled condition of thought gives ground , for grave apprehension when we consider the struggle that is likely to take place between the white and the coloured races. For mere superiority in knowledge and mental activity, without fixed principles, • without common purpose and common aim, cannot cope with the burning enthusiasm and dogged patience, with the unity in effort and sacrifice which are born of ideas and sentiments animating whole nations of men. History shows tljat a higher c form of j civilisation, when those who possessed it were split up by religious and political dissensions, by the selfish pusuit of gain or of pleasure, has often gone down ' before a lower form of civilisation in which these dividing, weakening and enervating influences were not at work. If we mean to be able to defend our country, to guard our freedom, to preserve the purity of our race, we must awake to the fact that the world is in an unsettled condition, that our national life may be threatened at any time, that we may be called on to make heavy sacrifices to resist attack, and that it is our duty and our wisdom to prepare for the evil day. In the event of war the fate of our country could not be decided by a football match or a' steeplechase. And until the young men of the colony are as eager to acquire the elements of military training for defensive purposes, as they are to become athletes, until the popular mind is as much impressed, with the value of drill and rifle-shoot-ing as if. is with the value of sports, we shall remain in a fool's paradise, which may at any moment be converted . into a scene of misery and helpless confusion. Calm forethought and quiet, deliberate, el- ; ficient preparation for emergencies can i alone enable u.s to avoid wild panic when J the panic comes. And if. by the mercy of God, the pinch never came, still wo should lie better and stronger in soul and in hotly, because we bad realised our position, fluty, and responsibility as men and as citizens. And the sense "of the greatness and usefulness of life will drive us to more earnest faith -in God. to a. more earnest belief in the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The more we are awake to the dangers which threaten us, to the stupendous upheavals which are going on all over the world, to the terrible, shattering of the heavens and the earth, which is troubling so many regions, the more we shall need the conviction that Christ," the righteous and the merciful, sits on the Throne, and that in the midst of strife, confusion, bloodshed, and calamity. He is making His presence and power felt, and shaping tho life of the world to a higher, nobler, and better state. So it was amid the turmoil of the first century, so it is amid the turmoil of our own day, so it will be till He lias put all the enemies of God and man under His feet.