HUMAN NEED OF SPRING CLEANING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18294, 11 July 1921, Page 6

HUMAN NEED OF SPRING CLEANING.

After a night of frost not long ago I was hurrying along, the road when I was attracted by a garden hedge. Everywhere upon its stiff, bare, prickly twigs were hung webs of silk, glistening in the light as the morning sunshine changed the hoarfrost crystals into clear, sparkling jewels. Never, I think, had I seen the spiders’ work look so beautiful.

In our homes when the sprint? sunshine lights up the dusty corners, and reveals the cobweb that has escaped the eye of the vigilant housewife, we are impatient to begin “spring cleaning.” We welcome gladly the sunny days, but we loath the dust we bring to light. The cobweb here is not a thing of beauty? or of joy, but merely a dust trap, and we sweep it down. I remember one good lady who coraplaind that her maid never thought to look up for the cobwebs that always seemed to find a place just out of reach. A serious lack, for the cobweb in the House Beautiful is a stain upon its cleanliness and a reproach to the diligent housewife. —Cobwebs of Prejudice.—

But ail cobw'ebs are not material, nor spun by spiders’ skill, of delicate and slender texture. And too often wo are like the servant lassie, and never trouble to look into the corners for the cobwebs that lurk in mind and heart and spirit in the life social, religious and political. How tenaciously, for example, does the cobweb of prejudice fasten itself on- heart and mind until we can scarcely judge aiight or see things in their true light. How we cling to the old way of doing things ! We are so sure of its superiority that we have scarcely patience to listen to the suggestion of any other, nor can we be pursuaded to try a new method, thouvh there is ■ every likelihood that it would prove more simple and effective than our old one. Do food reformers declare, to use a very homely illustration, that we lose much of the food value by boiling potatoes and other vegetables in the old, old way ? Sufficient for us that they have been cooked thus for generations. We make no change. We read, -perhaps, of casserole or “hay-box’’ cookery?. How it saves fire and gas, and cooks the food to perfection, rendering it more digestible. “It sounds all right,” we say, but we make no effort to put it to the test. Perhaps there is no place where prejudice has taken hold so firmly, as concerning woman, and her so-called sphere. We think at once of China and other Eastern lands where woman has been enslaved and despoiled for centuries. Of course, we Westerns are more enlightened. But in spite of the light of knowledge and experience we are slow to clear away the dust that has gathered round prejudiced idfeas. Our ancient Universities hesitate to confer degrees on women even though they win them. Some of us are even now not quite sure whether we like our girls to join in outdoor sports, such as hockey, or to take their place in the arena of workaday life ns do their brothers. See how slowly has the prejudice against the woman medical been cast awav ! Not because of doubt as to her skill—for her possible superiority in some directions was admitted —but, what? Some vague idea that a doctor’s life was not quite in keeping with her womanliness had, like a cobweb taken hold. But many? a woman has blessed the day? when she swept and garnished the room for her cornin'?, and to-dny the woman medical is accepted at somewhat nearer her true worth. —Old Cobwebs in Church. —

The first Sunday a woman stood up to preach in the City Temple some of the regular worshippers, not approving, stayed away. Not that they thought she could not "preach, or had no sincere or urgent message. No. IS imply because she was a woman. The old cobweb, prejudice, once more.

In our church life, too, many cobwebs need to be swept down, if we are to have the sweetness and light so necessary to the growing attractiveness and progress of the Christian kingdom. We allow ourselves because of sentiment or superstition, to be cumbered by old customs, outworn creeds, and antiquated methods which would bo tolerated nowhere else. Ecolesiasticism and sacramentarianism are cobwebs of disruption and antipathy. Here is a church that cannot admit you to the Lord’s Supper because no bishop has laid hands on your head. Here is another that stickles for the use of fermented wine because it is the true emblem, regardless of the fact that the fermented wine used is doctored with brandy, and that “leavened” bread is used. Another church discounts vour membership unless yon have —as the plain man calls it—“been dipped.” Some churches look askance at your credentials if vou have no prayer-meeting or claw- meeting of a, regularised order. Wily do wo allow these things which matter less and less in the litrht of the Spirit, to take hold until thev become almost too sacred to be touched ? We need the brush. Always the cobwebs. They are always accumulating, hi very generation must do its own spring cleaning. Our fathers did it. The present and future generation's have a rieht to worshin -nd sewe Ood in iheir o’ 1 "” wav. free from the -obwebe of custom, tradition, and creed If those things are retained that .ve suitable and helpful to sincere worship and Christian service, what more need we p.cfi ? “Where two or three are met together in My Name, there am I in the mirh-t.” That is the church in its essential simplicity. As to nil else, which is secondary, let u = hare t.h" best that is in keeping w ; th the 'o'-sl needs of the Church, community, and individual. ■—Social Evils.—And what of the many and harmful evils that are allowed to fasten-themselves, and, alas, are, in some quarters, encouraged to fasten themselves upon the life of a nation ? Drink, vice, monopoly, tyranny, and jingoism ; more than the cobwebs these, and difficult to sweep out. But if the determination and courage of the people were sufficiently roused, there is no doubt they could be dealt with as they ought to be. If these were swept away great would indeed be the victory ; far, far, greater good would result than anything that can be gamed by a military triumph. We recall that stirring picture of the Reformer, by Whittier the poet of one’s

early enthusiasms. The message is no less potent to-day. You remember how ha personified him as grim, and coiled, and brown, and strong, smiting the various shrines of the past. Grey-bearded use, the church, wealth, power and monopoly all suffered from his ravishing hand to their utter dismay. Then, says the poet: I looked aside, the dust-cloud rolled, The waster seemed the builder, too; Upspringing from the ruined old, I saw the new. ’Twaa but the ruin of ‘he bad, The wasting of the wrong and ill; Whate'er of good the old time had Was living still. We need it mental, moral, and spiritual spring-cleaning, not once a vear, but often, that our life, individual, social, religious, and political, may be cleansed of whatever endangers the growth, progress, and ■ general wellbeing of humanity.—Jeniiih Brooks, B. Litt., in the Scotsman.