UNION JACK AND OLD GLORY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16895, 6 July 1918, Page 1 (Supplement)

UNION JACK AND OLD GLORY

BY UATAXGA.

THEIR COMMON SYMBOLISM.

"The Government has decided, as a compliment to America, that flags shall he flown in New Zealand on Independence D ay, July 4." So ran the official announcement this weok. It was duly honoured ; and in the display of bunting that marked the day, while the Union Jack was rightly foremost, "Old Glory" had an honourable place. As they floated together their separate designs were thrust upon notice. Those aeeigns spoke to the thoughtful of many things of moment.

There is no flag in all tho world so charged with sacred suggestion as is our beloved "Union Jack." Wherever that Jack flutters, on ocoan or on shore; wherever Us scheme of design and colour floats J" the white ensign of our Royal Navy, !" ,he blue ensign of our naval reserve, m the red ensign of our merchant service, or in such local flags as our New Zealand ensign; there it tells its story and speaks Us message. Its history and message are such as to save all thinking men from mere idlo, jingoistic flag-waving. Wrapped i,i its folds are the most sacred principles of our faith. It wafts abroad inspuing devout, and sublime thought. It everywhere preaches progress, brotherhood, purity, truth, love, sacrifice, and the sancttiication of all life

Tins it does in its combining of the national symbols of peoples often at variance in days before the United Kingdom came to pass, and in its intertwined cross and saltires, and even in its colours. So, too, "Old Glory" tells a tale of progress in its thirteen stripes and growing number of stars— new one for each added State. Those stars are meaningful in themselves ; they sing aloud of heaven. But what most struck the gaze on Independence Day, ae these two national flags shared honour, was their participation in th 0 same colour-scheme of red, white, and blue. In this a fine symbolism dwells.

Symbols of Form and Colour. Symbolism is man's effort to find a mediation between spirit and matter, to make the material world servo in the kingdom of ideas. He has found symbols i in nature; sun, moon, and stars, the seasons, tho mountains, the sea, all around him, whisper to his wistful ears. Civilisation cannot rob man of this; we are but learning to see " the multitude of the heavenly host" in William Blake's sun, and to understand with Carlyle that matter exists only spiritually— represent some idea and "body it forth." Art, as in the enduring shapes of architectural design, is an immortal witness to man's needful rogard of this fact. In symbolism, colours have been given a prominent and consistent use. The old Assyrian monarchs, in their tablets and tower-decorations; the Greeks in their robing of Athena; the Italians in their paintings of Saviours, Madonna, and Saints; Dante in his "Divine Cornmedia"; Shakespere in his intensely human plays; all have found a language in colour. So did Moses when he was directed to employ colour for "glory and beauty." A voice out of the cloud, ho averred, bade him have an ephod made, cunningly worked in blue and purple and scarlet with fine linen and gold. John on Patmos heard and spoke the mystic, yet revealing language of colour. The great white throne, the streets of gold, the foundations and gates flashing their gleanr'ng beauty, are part of a pictorial conception of truth, picked out in colours. Man has made a substantially consistent response to colour's appeal to his intellect and emotion. In that response the primary colours have been given definite significance; and of those primary colours, red, white, and blue are found in our nation's cherished flag. Purity. To take first white— simple hue that rices from the fusion of all the rest: it has over stood for the good as opposed to the evil. Man was born for the day; the blackness of darkness is an uncongenial setting for him. Ho noted that air and sunlight and water as they cleansed, bleached also. Hence white has become his colour-snnbol for the pure. Egypt's Osiris had a head ornamented with "sparkling bands, shadowless, without mixture of colours." For the Greeks Pan was "white as snow," as Virgil says. Rome's Jumier was described as robed in white; and at the beginning of the year a consul in white ascended to the Capitol on a white horse to celebrate the triumph of Jupiter over darkness. In Scandinavia, India,,-' China, Java, Persia, Thibet, Mexico/ and many another land, white is held to represent the divine perfection of purity. The high priest in all religions, as among tho Jows, has white robes.

The vestal virgins wore the same emblem of purity. Says tho preacher of Scripture :'"Let thy garments be always white." White was tho colour of Christ's robe at the transfiguration, and in his appearance to John on Patmos. So the symbolism consistently goes; white is for purity. Tennyson catches up this meaning in his giving a hero "the white flower of a blameless life." Constancy. The blue of the two flags is the symbol of truth. The heavens, declaring the glory of God, have always stood for enduring, unshakable truth. Since the great blue vault reappears untarnished after every blackening storm, so its hue has been taken to represent truth in conduct — sincerity, fidelity, constancy. Egyptian Cneph, Greek Zeus, and Indian Vishnu have all had this as their characteristic colour. The elders of Israel, according to Ezekiel, saw under Jehovah's feet a paved work of sapphire stone of heavenly clearness. Above the cherubim Ezekiel saw again the sapphire throne. Isaiah records the promise: " I will lay thy foundations with sapphires," where truth, as the base of all stable character, is indicated. The old masters paint Christ with a blue mantle and John with a blue tunic. This notion of truthful constancy being symbolised by blue is emphasised in the beetle of blue stone ornamenting the rings of the Egyptian soldiers as a pledge of their fidelity. So is it in the tokens worn by the Scottish Covenanters of tho seventeenth century. " When their army entered Aberdeen," we read, "there were few of them without a blue ribbon." So, too, the little blue forget-me-not is a declaration of constancy. We are proud of the blue in our nation's flag, for it tells that Britain lias been prepared at great cost to keep covenants and honour treaties. We have not been altogether guiltless, maybe, in earlier days, but our national word is now regarded as our bond. We would merit the blessing of the man who swears to his own hurt and—alters not. "Old Glory's" blue speaks a like fidelity.

loyal .Love. Red is the colour of loyal love. Greece, Rome, Palestine, Egypt, India, Chinaall civilisations, practically— to regard it so. In love is warmth and life, and so red dame and red blopd are habitually used to depict it. Red blossoms carry everywhere tho samo suggestion. In Tennyson's "Maud" the lover declares that his beloved's footsteps would rouse his hejrt, even had he lain dead a century, and that his dust then Would start and tremble- under her feet. And blossom in purple and red. The Bible takes red as the colour of Christ, Lore Incarnate—glorious in his apparel, "like him that treadeth in the wine vat." We hontur the red in the flags of these nations, j It is to us the sign of our mutual affection and our readiness to give our life-hood for the folk and the causes we love.l Of all- the virtues, love is the greatest JLnd best. Without it, our purity will be helplessly austere and oar truth but coW light