SCOUTS AND GUIDES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20893, 8 June 1931, Page 11

SCOUTS AND GUIDES.

SERViICE IN TOWN HALL.

GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S HOMILY

IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER

Iwo grant youth movements, the Boy Scouts arid the Girl Guides, were associated yesterday afternoon in a combined religious nervice in the Town Hall lion oured by the presence of Their Excellencies this Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, who delivered an address, and the Lady Bledisloe. An annual service for Guides was insti tuted son e time ago, hut Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, on their recent visit, suggested that the Scouts should also take part. Iho boys and girls yesterday assembled in hundreds at r.ear by rallying points and marched to the Town Hall, their flags and standards making a brave show. In tho hall the flags were massed at the back of the stage. Mr. W. J. Holdsworth, Metropolitan Scout Commissioner, presided, and among those on the platform were Mrs. W. R. Wilson, Dominion Chief Commissioner ot Girl Guides, Archbishop and Mrs. Averill and the Hon. A J. Stallworthy. Several hundred parents and friends were seated in the gallery. Prayer was offered by the Rev. Angus McDonald, the lesson was read by Commissioner the Rev. R. J. Stanton, and the benediction at the close was pronounced by the archbishop. Some very inspiring "youth" hymns were used, and tho Scouts and Guides sang them with much feeling. Dangers of Precocity. The Scout law and the Guide law, said Lord Bledisloe, in his address, were the same, and might be called the code of good citizenship. Those who were really good citizens of an earthly kingdom were all the tims qualifying themselves for another and a greater Kingdom, to which they hoped to belong. He hoped that that afternoon's gathering would tie a reef knot between the two movements, the ropes being laws and guiding principles of the same sound material and of the same thickness. "The greatest weakness of the age is the craving to 'get rich quickly,' " continued His Ex:ellency. "One result is foolish and extravagant gambling, followed often by poverty, disillusionment and discontent, and a disinclination to climb the ladder of life, rung by rung, energetically and wilh self-respect, to the summit of our capacity, if not of our ambition. The lack of homo discipline when we are young often accentuates this restless longing to secure the prizes of life without having earned them. But this craving is not confined to the acquisition of money or even of social position. "Many young peoplo nowadays seek, by throwing off all restraint, to enrich themselves all too quickly in the experiences of life, and, indeed, they play with fire without, caring much whether their wings be singed and their subsequent flight impeded or destroyed. They are like senseless moths attracted from their safe, natural surroundings by the lure of a candlf or a lamp. It. is this tendency—to drink while young 100 rapidly and deeply of life's experiences—which is multiplying the number of human 'lame ducks,' who are unable through feebleness of mind or body to support themselves, and who become a burden to other and mare prudent people." Life's Deadly Microbes. T Dravring a parallel from the disabilities ol oaks and other hardy trees in the mild Auckland climate, Lord Bledisloe remarked that precocious growth, whether of plants or animals, often meant early decay. "The most heartening feature of your two great movements," he said, "is that they are enabling you to gather strength for life's battle and vigour for future growth and development by ac quirinn self-control, resourcefulness and a steadily increasing confidence in your own capacity, based on faith in God and the consciousness of successful effort in many useful directions. " If you want to lie happy and strong and successful in life, develop, when young, your power of resistance to life's pests —the germs and microbes with which the surrounding atmosphere is full, and which pounce greedily upon those who have i low power of resistance and work destruction upon their minds, their bodies or their souls. By maintaining our health on thi) one hand and developing our character on the other, we can cover ourselves with a protective shield which will effectively ward off most of tho ills of life." Lord Bledisloe told the boys and girls how tuberculosis among children in a London slum had been fought by increasing the supply of milk. "Let religion lie the milk which will give you the power of resistance and the reserve force to enable you to resist the insidious attacks of life's numerous deadly microbes," lie continued. "It is not necessary to parade your spiritual diet, but don't go with | out it." Character, said Lord Bledisloe, like a vitamine, was difficult exactly to define, but recognisable in those who possessed it and whose lives were governed bv it. The individual had to build it up for him - ( self; he did not inherit it. "There is I no finer training in the world than that j of a Boy Scout or a Girl Guide," His I Excellency concluded, "not only to build up character, but also to develop that j self-confidence, founded upon useful know- | ledge, which renders character effective I both for our own individual good and that of thg great self-respecting Kingdom and Empire which we are proud to call our own, but which can only maintain its pre-eminence in the world if, by the exercise of uprightness, it forms part of the Kingdom of God. Always be upright and you will be happy yourselves and radiate happiness around you."