LISTENING-IN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19086, 3 August 1925, Page 13

LISTENING-IN.

Aro you a good listener-in ? Then you are among earth's rarest and choicest spirits. Have you ever meditated on tho fact that tho people who havo listened-in to tho subtle secrets of Nature have done all the progressive things of the world? (i ' ./>■ Nature whispered quietly about all her fine innermost values, and the talkers of tho world havo drowned her voice. When you go eavesdropping upon her to learn of her beauty and truth, you have to go alono, unless you are that most .privileged of mortals—the ono who has found a chum as ready to be a, fine listener as you are. " Be still and know," is ono of tho finest old Biblical teachings we have. It is also the greatest common law for tho development of progressive life. We have scrambled and raced through the ages looking for the secret of happiness. Wo have also talked at the top of our voices, or argued vociferously about it all tho time, so of course we havo not heard its low whisper at our ease. We meet our follows in a crowd, usually, where all. is noise, hustle, and excitement. Is it any wondor we never learn of tho beautiful soul that lurks under a shy exterior, or that wo misunderstand tho silence? We say wo lovo natural beauty. I have yet to come across tho porson who will say he does not. Yet we go out to seek it in a noisy group that would scare any self-respecting butterfly into retreat. But you slip out by yourself into your garden some fine morning with a hand microscope, and stealing on the silicon shoes of thought and tenderness, see what glory you can discern on any butterfly s beautiiul wings. It will let you get closo for observation if you will bo quiet. It is singular, when you come to think of it, how desperately discordant are most of tho sounds humans make. How beautiful and harmonious the nature sounds aro in comparison to tho din most of us set I am hoping that tho popular listeningin to beautiful music and to fino lectures will help us to finer expression of our own selves, says a writer in an exchango. I am- hoping still more that, the listening itself will quiet our nerves and spirits I enough to let us got at that poised stillness through which alono we can know the Innermost Fellow o! us. Only thus can we truly get to comprehend the Innermost Fellow of the humans about us. Until we do this wo must. Jack the glory of unity, and brotherliness, and the poised selfhood, which alone will bring us the lasting peace and happiness that all earth's ages, have sought bo feverishly-