THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, APRIL 18. 1949. EASTER, 1949

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27058, 18 April 1949, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, APRIL 18. 1949. EASTER, 1949

With the majority of Otago people, as with the majority of New Zealanders, Easter —that , mostpoignant and significant festival on the Christian calendar —is a sports field celebration. It would be sanctimonious and unfair to pretend that in our raw Antipodean civilisation it was not ever thus, from the time of Otago’s founding there has been sorrow among practising Christians at the small regard many professing Christians have paid to the holy days; time was when the denunciations of this outwaid godlessness, hurled from the pulpit, at least pricked the conscience of the community. To-day. even the churches, seem to accept with apathy the festival programme of the greater congregation—Good Friday, championship bowling, tennis, golf; Saturday, racing; Sunday, all sports. On Good Friday, 1613, that worldly but devout mystic, John Donne, finding himself travelling westward, turned his thoughts to the East and the events that took place there so long ago. And he reflected: “Though these things, as I ride, be from; mine eye, they’re present yet unto my memory.” It may be too much a sophistry to suggest that at Easter, 1949, many of those who give no time to Christian observances are yet aware and thoughtful of the reasons for their holiday. Yet there must be many, to whom a church is but the stage for christenings, weddings, funerals, who still value and respect those things of thib’ spirit which have their focal point in Christian worship. To characterise this, or any other, community as non-Christian because so large a part of it neglects the church would surely be an error.

But the puzzle and the slur remain. As generalisations go, it is safe to say that never in the history of the world have men been more in need than to-day of spiritual resources and a code. And, it can be added, never have men sought these things less. If the world is divided again in the horror of war, the conflict will be between that way of life which asserts man’s free spirit and that which makes, him the bond-servant of the materialistic State. Men will give their lives deliberately, and without cavil, for the iteration of their belief in a form of life which, with all its imperfections, pays service to the Christian ideal; in these anxious days, will not spare a few hours from the preoccupations of the playing fields to reflect upon the story which is the cradle of their faith. Must we admit,'this Easter-tide, that nothing less than the shock of atomic war can reawaken man to a consciousness of his spiritual needs?