THE ONLY WAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20644, 16 February 1929, Page 27

THE ONLY WAY.

Written tor the Otago Daily Times. By the Rev. D. Gardner Miller. The title of my topic this week is not nulled from that breathless play of the same name, which in turn was taken from that fascinating book “ A Tale 61 Two Cities,” by the immortal Dickens. The only resemblance lies in the fact that it is the best title—indeed, the only one —that expresses the tremendous and vital truth which shines crystal-clear in the book of another writer whose claim to immortality is accepted by discriminating readers. The writer is Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the book “ The Brothers Karamazov.” I don’t know how many of my readers are acquainted with the literature of Russia. If you are still strangers to it, then waste no time in getting an introduction. No man who makes any pretence of knowing general literature can afford to be ignorant of Russian writers. As far as insight into motives is concerned, and a certain apprehension of the fundamental factors that go to make up life—despite the morbid and the emotional—Russian literature is unique. But to our tale. In a chapter in “ The Brothers Karamazov ” there is a scene depicted which once read, can never be forgotten. Dostoevsky here reaches high-water mark, and I think I have read practically everything he wrote. Before dealing with it, let me try to picture to you the writer himself. He was the son of a doctor. His parents and five children lived in two rooms, so desperately poor were they. When quite a young man Dostoevsky attraction attention by the publication of his first book, ■ “ Poor Folk.” Then the usual happened. Because he was one of a band of young people who met together to study literature, the Russian Government pounched upon him, and by order of the Czar (Nicholas I) he was arrested and condemned to death. After eight months’ imprisonment he was, with 21 others, taken out to be shot. Just as the soldiers were about to fire they were informed that the Czar had spared their lives of the prisoners. The sentence was commuted to hard labour in Siberia. After four years Dostoevsky was liberated, and spent some years in a disciplinarian battalion. Always sickly in health, his disease developed into epilepsy. When in 1859 he was allowed to return to Russia he immediately took up literary work, editing a journal, and also writing novels which have since become famous. In debt and bad health he struggled along until finally he died, but not before he had become the idol of the Russian people. It is said that his funeral was like that of a king. His work is shapeless and rugged—an almost violent contrast to the artistry of Tolstoy—but it is shot through with love of suffering humanity. It has qualities that only genius possesses. Introduced into the book “ The Brothers Kasaraagor ” is a chapter—a literary gem—depicting the visit of Christ to the city of Seville in Spain at the time of the Inquisition. As He walked along the streets there was something about Him that struck a silence through the gay crowd that had come to view the customary spectacle of men and women being tortured. The Divine visitor made no remark. As of -old, children ran ,to Him. He healed a man of blindness and, when meeting a funeral of a little child on the steps of the Cathedral, He raised the little one to life again. The joy , and excitement of the crowd knew no bounds, but on the outskirts was ad old man, the Grand Inquisitor, the chief of the Roman Catholic Church, and he, seeing what had been done, gave orders that the stranger should be imprisoned. That night the Grand Inquisitor visited the prison and by the light of a lamp which he carried, he looked at the Christ (for he knew who He was) and then poured out upon him a torrent of accusation. Ho accused Christ of leading men astray by offering them the gift of freedom. In words, terrible in their import, the Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that “we (the Church) have corrected Thy work and have founded it upon miracle, mystery and authority.” I have not the space necessary to outline further the awful statement of the old religious bigot; it is sufficient to say that, during the denunciation, Christ never spoke a word in reply. Finally, when the old man had finished, Christ approached him in silence and softly “KISSED HIM ON HIS BLOODLESS

AGED LIPS.” That was His answer. It was the onlyway. The old man shuddered. He went to the door of the prison, opened it, and said, “ Go; and come no more. Come not at all, never, never, never.” The whole scene is tragic and poignant. But what an answer Christ gave to the man who, in the name of religion, was His hitter enemy! It was the only answer He could give. It was the New Testament answer.

The wronged party must ever take the initiative. It is the way God takes with men who defy His. love and His authority. To kiss the smiter is hard, almost impossible; it takes terrible courage, but no man or woman who ever follows the Christ-way of forgiving wrong has ever regretted it, even though the wrong-doer remains stubborn and unrepentant. He who says the Christian attitude of utter forgiveness is weak and sentimental has never tried it and confesses his ignorance of the redemptive purpose and force that lies in the very heart of the Gospel. When the Christ way-—the only way—is tried out in the affairs of men and nations, then the Kingdom of God will have come.