"WHY WAS THIS WASTE?"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17459, 1 May 1920, Page 1 (Supplement)

"WHY WAS THIS WASTE?"

LIFE'S PRICELESS THINGS. BT MATANGA. Of old there sat in an Eastern house a guest who had drawn to him the love of common folk. Though- high of birth, he had been as one of them, making their needs his care; and they longed to show their thanks. One, a woman, urged by a love that set store on nought of self and brooked no denial of its purpose, came in as he sat at meat, bearing in her hand i\ flask of precious perfume. Drawing near, she snapped the fragile neck of the flask and poured its fragrance over him. His companions protested, murmuring of the waste; better had she sold the perfume, they said, and given the proceeds to the poor. Her gift was of tho sort that kings j sent to other courts and the fabulously rich employed to carry their affection on great errands: she, without their wealth, had contrived to emulate their lavishness. What folly! they thought; that tiny flask of perfume was worth well nigh a work-ing-man's labour for a year. It might have housed and clothed and fed at least a few poor. Their murmurings caught the ear of the honoured guest, and his rebuke silenced them in shame and filled the whole world with th-> fragrance of her deed.

He cared for the poor more than they all; he coveted no wealth for himself; yet in his eyes that deed was worthy of high praise. Their blindness knew nothing of spiritual values. They bad none but a money-measure for any gift. But he knew human need and human yearnings too well to make their mistake. The opulence of her heart made such a lavish gift befitting; and, instead of impoverishing the world, it enriched all life. Their spirit, the spirit of Iscariot, that finds easy means to accept a price for life's best, has outlived them. It has embodiment in our commercial age. Material standards obsess us. " What's lie worth ?'' has reference to a bank account. A good bargain is the one that leaves a margin of monetary gain on our own side. " What have you "got to show for it?" is the tost of expenditure. But in all this we are blind, blind! Holy Writ has done more for the world than the ledger. Loveletters have longer currency than bank notes. The charity that bestows largess can do more for life than the shrewdest investment on the stock exchange. The things that matter most show themselves least.

A Fit Time for Festival. j Our Prince is among us, a symbol of i our national unity, a focus lor our loyalty to British ideals. We deem it fitting to take time of: from daily labour, to bedeck our streets with welcoming ornament and gay bunting, to hold festivals and make merry. Waste, all waste! mutters Iscariot in the background; and some of better heart but no better brain than he echo his surliness. But the keenest eyes and truest hearts will not be misled by the complaint. . True, these are not the days for extravagance. The need of ourselves and others demands retrenchment. But where shall we begin ? With the soul ? Shall we become oeasts before the assaults of wAnt, denying first the desires that make us men ? Let us begin with luxuries, by all means, and exercise a frugal care over all our expenditure. But what are our I luxuries? Are they the things of mind and heart, and all else necessities by contrast? Mahomet's advice has wisdom rather: "If a man have two loaves of bread, let him sell one of them, and buy some lilies; for bread nourishes the body only, but to look at lilies feeds the soul.'-' Better to make shift with one loaf of i bread instead of two than to miss tho I lilies.

The Gain of Gaiety. Surely these are just the days when the momentous things of the spirit should have full opportunity to woo us and our children to " the greatness of life. Circumstances decree that we shall do without many things that have ministered to our bodily comfort. Fuel and food and clothing are obtainable under limits to which we have to become accustomed. On that very account we shall need, to have our hearts enlivened, that we may go* cheerfully to life's tasks and tide over the time of stress by courageous gladness. That which we may seem to squander on a> little gaiety may well prove a,n investment : to-morrow's work will be none the wDrse for to-day's legitimate festivity. When we are foolish enough to stop the band because its music dies away into silence without working any windmills, and to hush the saluting cannon because its fiery blast smelts no ore, we diminish life, To haul down our national flags with a view to making garments out of them for the poor would do them but disservice : in a little while their need would recur, whereas their chief surety of our sympathy lies in the sentiment that prizes the cruciform device and all the significance of the fluttering symbol. We are placed in a world where life comes to fulness through beauty. Hue and fragrance and song there declare the poverty of mere utilitarian concern; and in human life there are heights and depths to which creature comforts can perform only a very limited ministry. The things that have no commercial measure —the light that shines on heaping cloud and fretful sea and in the western sky, the songs of the mating birds, the whisper of the dying wind at close of day and the jreat silence of the starlit night —mean more_ to us than meat and raiment, if our souls are awake and awareAnd to that glorious ensemble we are privileged to add a human share in fluttering colour and pulsing music and happy laughter. There is not waste, ,but life, in the provision of means for such enjoymerit- Enjoyment comes with expression. To deny <»ur soul's aspiration in these thing* that is the real waste, It is to have a nature functioning but in part,

and that the meanest part. Life's Roses. Robert Rlatchford has cited with apI pro?al James Oppenheim'fi phrasing of 1 the song of the working women of to-day. i As v.o mine man liner, marching, in the. 1 beauty of the Hay. ; A million darkened kitchen?, a thousand mill-loPs grev. Arc touched with all the radiance that a ! - idden '•'in Hi closes : ' I'm the ix»orle hear m singing—Bread and i Roes Bread and Roses As wo <ome marching, marling, we battle, .->. for men ! >f,r thev .ire women's children, and we \ mother them again, i Our lives i, lail not he sweated from birth I until lii" closesHeart' starve as well »< bodies; (rive US I Bread, but cue us Poses : .*,« we rome maritime, marching, unnumI hcred women dead do trvirp: tnrn-iiH our singing their ancient son* of Bread. j Small art and l'''-e and beauty their drudg- ' in: sprit i line* ! Yes. it in Bread we fish I for; hut we fight I for Rose? too. ' As V come marehine, marching, we bring ; " the drea'er Davs 1 The rising of the women mean* the rising I of the race ! No more '.be drudge and idler- ten that toil i ' vlier» ore renoses j Bu> a sharing if life- clones; Bread and I Roses Bread and Roses. \r. lover of his kind wishes to see ethers eo short of bread. The right of every man to life's hod 11 v comfort today roes' uncontested save, hv his own disfolutpiiPfF or folly, and there is a world vide sympathy with misfortune. But there are tinners that count for more in human life than creature comforts, for finch ful'v fashioned men will sacrifice neat ire run forts. They are intangible, immrasurali!.-. eternal as beauteous as roses, a-- fwe»t as childhood's laughter, as' glorious as the impassioned sea. Of such are loyalty and love; and the cost of these, is not to be lightly accounted waste.