SAYINGS OF THINKERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22101, 3 November 1933, Page 6

SAYINGS OF THINKERS

THE ART OF PRAYER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, September 29. - Dean Inge, in a sermon at Eastbourne:-- . . _ , “ Some people pray to Almighty God as if He were a benevolent fairy who grants our wishes if they are properly backed by the name of Jesus Christ used as a charm. It does not occur to them that to pray in the name of Jesus Christ means to pray in the spirit of Jesus Christ as He would Rave us pray. Another common thing is unconsciously to form a mental picture of God as a long way off in a geographical heaven. If we remembered, what, of course, is the truth, that Heaven is nearer to our soul than earth is to our body, we should direct our thoughts inward rather than upward to find God.”

MODERN YOUTH AND SUICIDE. Dr C. H. Golding-Bird, assistant bishop of Guilford, in Guildford Cathedral: —

“ Self-murder is a sin, not only against the State, but a sin against God. It is a mortal sin. It is throwing away the gift of life which God has bestowed. The self-murderer makes himself, in this matter, a rival or equal of God.^ “ I suppose many reasons might be given against the nation for the unhappy state of mind that causes self-murder, but surely the real ca*ise is that it is not realised that eelf-murder is a hideous sin.

“I suppose sin is old-fashioned. It is as old-fashioned as the world/ lam quite convinced that we require to-day more definite preaching about the awfulness of sin, that it really does cut us off from God. May not this nonrealisation of sin have something to do with the prevalence of self-murder? If there is a real belief in God, there must of necessity be a real wish to obey His laws. If there is no conscious belief in God, there can be no realisation of sin and its consequences. Surely, we should teach that there never can be any dilemma about suicide. Always self-murder must be contrary to the will of God, and, therefore, sin.” ENGLISH CHARACTER “TELEVISED.”

Mr Baldwin, in a broadcast address on “The National Character”: — “The English character has been described as * grim individuality and the power of co-operation.’ The English character is largely one of those contrasts. Take a small thing—no people grumble more than we do, but we never worry. The more difficult the times the •more cheerful we become. We are always serene in times of difficulty. “ We have a glorious sense of humour, rather than a sense of wit. We can laugh at ourselves, and laughter is one of the best things God has given us. Of all men who have shown us what laughter can mean none was like Dickens. “ Some of the best things in this country have originated among our own people, with no help from Government —friendly society work, trades unions, our hospitals, and our education before the State took it in hand. Then the Englishman has a profound respect for law and order. That is part of his tradition of self-government ordered liberty, not disordered liberty with what invariably follows it, tyranny—at this moment one of the rarer things in this topsy-turvy world. “ Those qualities were never more needed in the world. Let us hold on to what we arc. Let ns not try to be like anybody else. With our pertinacity, with our love of freedom, with our love of ordered freedom, with our respect for law, and our individuality and our power of combining in service, I believe from my-heart that our people arc fitted to pass through whatever trials may be before them and to emerge, if they are true to their own best traditions, a greater people in the future than they have been in the past.”