NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23928, 31 March 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

GRAY'S PROPHECY FULFILLED A correspondent sends in the following lines from the IStli century poet Thomas Gray. They are part of his poem "Luna Habitabilis," written when a student at Cambridge liniver<i ty in 1787. The prophecy uttered 20-1 years ago lias waited until recent months for its fulfilment. Gray wrote: Tho time will come when thou slialt lift

thi hp eyes To watch a long-drawn battle in the skies. While aired peasants, too amazed for words, Stare at the flying fleets of woml'rons birds. England, so long the mistress of the sea, Where winds and waves confess her sovereignty, Flor ancient triumphs yet on high shall bear, And reign, the sovereign of the conquered air. MAN'S CHIEF END Suppose you had the power to turn back the pages of the volume of the years and make a new beginning; suppose that the recording angel came to you to-dav and said: "Here is your life —I am going to let you go back 10 years, 20 years, 40 years, and start nil over again," what yould you sa t v? asks Dr. James S. Stewart, the Edinburgh preacher, in his book, "The Strong Name." Would you ask that the sorrows and hardships you have had should this time be eliminated? No, surely not: for these things away, how much poorer you would be! Leave it to Omar Khayyam and all his tribe of hedonistic sentimentalists to rail at—and to want a world with only pleasure in it and all the suffering left out; leave it to them to talk in their histrionic and oven hysterical way about "shattering this sorry scheme of things to bits ana remoulding it nearer to the heart's desire." If "man's chief end" is to be pleased and petted and made comfortable, then Omar Khavyam was right. But God has greater business in hand with you and me than that poor miserable ideal; and if the world were nearer to the heart's desire, it might be further from the soul's salvation. QUALITIES AND DEFECTS Lord Beaverbrook has an impudent audacity which is verv valuable, writes Commander King-Hall. He refuses to listen to reason when his instincts tell him something is necessary. He works on the nrinciple that what is thinkable is possinle. He is the voltage in the War Cabinet, and voltage is essential; but so is an electric circuit to carry the current. As an electric circuit, the "Heaver" would he a menace, for he would join positive to negative and cause a series of short-circuits without a blush on his face. He would even get a sardonic pleasure in watching the explosion, just as a small boy enjoys the uproar in a household when he fuses the lights. The "Beaver" is like the Lord Mayor who kicks off at a Cup-tie. Sometimes he kicks the hall in the wrong direction. The important point is that he starts the ball rolling and the professionals can then get busy. The Lord Mayor may even rush on to the field after the game has started. It is then necessary to trip him up. This is not easy, for he is very agile and sometimes brings a second ball on to the ground. There have been occasions on- which this has proved to be a convenience and enabled a goal to be scored at both ends of the field.