The WORLD of RELIGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

The WORLD of RELIGION

OCZ By PHILEMON

TT would be difficult to find a better type of the essentially religious man than that to be found in Dr. Edward Wilson, of the Antarctic, whose "Life," by George Seaver, has been so widely read. "1 never thought the Christ-life possible till I saw it in your husband," wrote Lieutenant Pennell to Mrs. Wilson, and it is but one testimony of many to the real goodness of the man. During the expedition of 1901 Shackelton used to como to him "with doubts and questionings of faith and morals mixed with a tangle of theological perplexities" and was met, we are told, with the reply that faith in Christ was not primarily a matter of doctrinal or intellectual belief, but a personal allegiance: a way of life. None could doubt that Wilson himself trod the "way" which he commended to others. In youth he paraphrased, in his own language and without reference to any commentary, nearly the whole of the New Testament, and this he did as a matter of religious discipline, "to set a standard for himself"; and as he grew to manhood and during his Polar expeditions faced the gravest perils and responsibilities his faith stood every test and his religious convictions stood foursquare to every assault of circumstance.

A Steadying Influence

This it was that made him always an assuring, steadying influence among his fellowmen. "One realised as one toiled beside him," says Professor Debenham, "that there was a man who knew no fear, in whom there was some mysterious force that triumphed, some faith that upheld." "There is not a single member of the expedition," says C. S. Wright, the physicist, "from Captain Scott down to myself who ever undertook any serious step without first asking Dr. Wilson's advice." "He is consulted in everything," are the words of Scott himself, "from the larger issues to ridiculously sm(ill details of life and work." In the last journey every virtue of the strong, brave Christian man shone forth. "I am glad," says Lieutenant Bowers, "that he (Scott) has Dr. Wilson in his tent; he comes out best in adversity." ''Staunchest of Friends" Utterly unselfish, always pulling his full weight and something more, unruffled in temper, clean in thought and life, his faith in their mission and in its divine appointment constant—he was the equal of the most courageous, their stay in the darkest hour, a man whose secret lay deep within the soul. On the last day of the blizzard at the foot of the Beardmore he sacrificed his whole biscuit-ration to his pony; when they saw Amundsen's flag flying at the Pole and knew that they had been forestalled, the bitterness of disappointment found its only utterance in the eAtry in his diary: "He has beaten us in so far as he has made a race of it"; in the last sad hour Scott writes to Mrs. Wilson: "I should like you to know how splendid he was to the end, everlastingly cheerful and ready to sacrifice himself for others. I can do no more to comfort you than to tell you that he died as he lived, a brave, true man—the best of comrades and staunchest of friends." An Open Secret The secret of it all is an open one. He had practised from youth vital contacts with the spiritual world. He was a man of faith and of prayer.' It is

unthinkable that he was mistaken in the principles that sustained him. He used to go up into the crow's nest, ostensibly for scientific purposes and to write his diary, but it was a private chapel where he sought, not in vain, fellowship with God. To his wife _he wrote: "I have spent the happiest times there alone with God and with you, nothing above but the sky and snow-squalls, and nothing below but the sea and miles of ice." And the last words to her, written in the tragio tent, are almost too sacred for the public eye, but they reveal the man and are published in his "Life": "Life itself is a small thing to me now, but my love for you is ior ever and a part of our love for God. ... I do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you may be tilled with the knowledge of His will. . . . Your little Testament and Prayer Book will be in my hand or in my breast pocket when the end comes. All is well." Truly "the path of the just is as the light of the dawn that shineth more and more unto the noontido of the day." Humiliation and Reconciliation

Principal Micklem, of Mansfield College, Oxford, delivered an address of great interest in St. Edmund's, Lombard Street, a while ago, which is now published in his booklet, "The Church Catholic." Dr. Micklem is a persona grata with all the British Churches and recently delivered an important address on Church Re-union in Westminster Abbey. At Lombard Street he referred to the fact that the tercentenary of the ejectment of the two, thousand clergy who declined "to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity in 1662 would occur in 1962. The ejectment, he said, was a national disaster. "One party in the Church triumphed; the other party was driven out," and the sad thing, t says the principal, was that whereas those ejected came out regretfully, under conscientious compulsion, their descendants have inherited their principles, but "not their sorrow." He maintained that in 1662 the Church of England "inflicted irreparable injury upon itself—it created nonconformity, it compelled the disunion of the Church in England for future centuries." In concluding his address Dr./ Micklem suggested that the last thing to be desired was that the ter-centen-ary should be observed in any divisive spirit. "Is it not possible that if we approached the matter in the right spirit, and if we began our preparations now, we might celebrate the oc- \ casion with a Day of Humiliation and Reconciliation?" The title of the address is "The Proper Treatment of Byegones," and many will think it not inappropriate.

Two of the most effective preachers in England to-day are women. Mrs. Itowntreo Clifford, whose husband was president of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland, holds a great congregation of two thousand women every week. And Miss Maude Royden, who is a member of the Anglican Church, gathers a crowded audience at the Guild House, where her ministry grows in power and influence every year. Those who know the valuable work done by the Rev. G. E. Moreton, as chaplain and secretary of the Auckland Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, will wish him and Mrs. Moreton bou. voyage during the' visit to England, on which they have just set out.