PURPOSE OF LIFE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23687, 20 December 1938, Page 18

PURPOSE OF LIFE

We have been accustomed to take for granted certain moral standards as commonplaces of civilised life—decency, kindliness and good faith, says Sir Walter Moberly, writing on "Moral Rearmament" in the Listener. And now we are finding, to our dismay, that we can't take them for granted in other people; and we are no longer so sure as we should like to be that, at a real pinch, we can live up to them ourselves. The fact is these standards are not independent. In Europe they were mainly the product of Christianity; and, where Christianity decays, they are liable to decay. Most of us rub along from day to day living pretty much on the surface. We never ouite face the question, "What, if anything, is it that we really believe in? " Believe, that is, in the sense that we build our whole lives on it, and that, if we. were brave enough, we would be ready to die for it? A few weeks ago I heard of an unemployed man who, after describing his hardships, said, "But that's not the worst. It's the aimlessness that gets you down." So, with men and with nations, its the lack of any clear and definite purpose in life that is making us such poor creatures.