NEXT TO GODLINESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2707, 31 January 1906, Page 73

NEXT TO GODLINESS.

Not next to. but a long way before, in , the estimation of some among us surely stands this virtue of cleanliness. It is more difficult to place than many an unlabelled virtue. As we wander here and there appraising its value we shall find it far indeed from its reputed next-door neighbour sometimes. Here it is appalently held in equal estimation, and there in none at all; while most often the old partnership between the two qualities has been dissolved long since ! Cleanliness does not always mean comfort, as 1 should confidently call the harassed maids of many a "very particular" mistress to witness. Thai each day has its appointed "tale of bricks" in the cleaning line is only inevitable ; but there are superfluities of cleanliness — a quality , that I am sure the Martha who was I "caiefui over many things" possessed, in common with other praiseworthy but uncomfortable traits that no doubt made her '•gey ill to live with." Martha-like

qualities are not distinctive of the New -iWoman. She will transfer corresponding qualities to the expression of her work farther afield, though, We sure. But there >re Marthas among us, inflexible exponents of- the faith that cleanliness is so near a quality to godliness as to be almost . identical with it. Of them I should like %o ask if the polishing and burnishing of things already speckless, the cleaning of ,what is already clean, simply because it is "the day for doing it," may not degenerate into a meanness under some circuit stances, a folly under others? If it Bimply means unnecessary work to be done by a willing little iraid, is it not meanness to rob her of the little margin of time which, legitimate routine being at pause, might be her own — the reward of household virtue? Or must poor virtue always be its own soinewnat barren reward? If it means unnecessary work done by grourself , is it not folly ? Would it not be fcetter spent, that little margin of time you insist on dedicating to the cleaning of things already clean, in going out lor a walk, in reading the paper intelligently, so that you can enter into and fiiscuss the world's news with your husband, appreciate the record-breaking feats tof some athletic champion with your brother? Or if neither outdoor exercise Bra the consciousness of conversationalcomjpanionship attract you, there must be some delightful list' of needlecraft lying sick friend to go and see, or there is — ah i is aot this the innermost prick of conscience*?— the music that you jilways tell yourself you have "no time for" to practise? Would not any of these- employments for that spare hour fit you to give more pleasure to others, and be happier at the end of the day (or "Ithe year), yourself better, than that ultra tleanliness which has made you physically •weary, mentally martyrised, and therefore - "*' S ev iH to live with." But I shall presently have you concluding that I rather like dirt-. . . . Now, heaven forfend i The things I love are sunshine, fresh air, and cleanliness. It Ib when cleanliness is carried from use to abuse, from the unconscious or actual practice which makes it a part of the Uaily lovely harmony of mind and body .to an aggressive, nerve- irritating, comfortdestroying juggernaut that I rebel — the iiltra cleanliness which places white-stoned door-steps and burnished threshold brass, immaculate paint and shining boards, before the patter of joyous little feeb and the incidental touch of grubby little fingers, so that it is even easier for the ■little culprit to tell a story about a footprint or a- fingermark than to endure the stinging smack of punishment! It isn't companionable either, this cleanliness that comes before godliness, vrhicb, in its outward and work-a-day manifestation, I take to be — kindliness. I may be unsound L doctrine, and heretical in household management, but I cannot help thinking that most men would piefer a lvrxleiate and reasonable cleanlii»'ss wh'ch d.d not o\«.-rtax the energy and fiel i lie t'lnjHT of the good house mother to that apotklis-, ductless, high-pressure aeatne*s v.uku ensmes reproof and re-

eentment for every infringement of its stern perfection. I know that the Marthas among my readers, — dear unselfish women who are slaves to their household appointments — would 1 really rather their children grew up in the lovely unconscious conviction «-vat in all the world there is no place like horne — in all the earth no one so dear, so sweet and lovely as mother ! . — yet I doubt if they »re going the right way about fostering that desirable faith. Yet, once more, lest I seem to 6e in sympathy with the fine disregard of household craft and its sweet atmosphere of complete personal and household purity, I hasten to record my conviction that cleanliness cannot be too early and too completely instilled into every habit of a child's life. We are the slaves of habit. To Europeans the very name of "diit" is abhorrent in its crude application, yet how the simple definition of "dirt" differs in the standards of various nations our fireside readings and our over-seas travels abundantly prove. It is another , verification of the old adage, "One man's nieat, another man's poison." In the tabulated virtues of the Moslem the classification which sets cleanliness next to godliness assuredly holds good, for bathing and cleansing and purification by water in life, and by fire in death, ar© such an integral part of his religious formula as tv actually stand on an equality with godliness. Thus it is that iv those countries where Mahommedamism and Buddhism reign side by side, our sympathies are drawn insensibly to the Moslem, be lie half naked peasant or robed and turbanned noble, by the contrast his personal , cleanliness affords to the dirty — I almost wrote filthy — Buddhist. Cleanliness in its personal and physical application), one imagines, can scarcely fail to exercise a certain refining influence on any people where it is practised from a sense of self-respect. And it is natural to link personal cleanliness rising to daintiness with refinement and' beauty of mind. Yet the assumption is as illusionary as are so many of our pleasant surface thoughts. Nero, rose -garlanded', woman-decked ; Caligula, insatiable human tiger, were they not of those trebly-refined Romans of the decadence, whose costly baths of perfumed waters were as delicate a detail of their sensuous lives as any excess cf the table, any excitement of the arena? The mest exquisite personal cleanliness had no correspondingly beautiful mental I characteristic in the Roman dames who \ watched with brilliant eyes the goodly j array of gladiators emerge into the sunlight, heard with absolute indifference their

proud greeting and, perchance, farewell. , "We why are about to die salute thee. | C«sax!" Cleanliness in those days of ' Rome's decadence had risen to the refined extravagance which 'easily enough sank to mere sensuality. Cleanliness may be climatic — merely the 1 natural instinct of a race living in sunny iatitudes, where bathing affords the simplest and most natural means of enjoying oneself ; and there- it may be said that cleanliness ceases to possess any virtue, being 1 merely an "ttgynct, so much a natural

habit as to be absolutely without influence on the mind or character of those who practise it. Yet we civilised people find our sympathies going out to the simple brown people -who sport and play, swim ssxd dive by coral reef and palm-fringed shores much more than to the cheery little Laplander or patient Esquimaux, whose climate compels him to coat himself with grease, and sets him, reeking with oil and browned with smoke, to herd indiscriminately in huts whose atmosphere to us would seem nauseous beyond endurance. All the good qualities of the Tibetan fail to reconcile us to hid triumphant and appalling personal dart. Merry he may be, and wise, patient, industrious, and manly, tolerant, broad-minded, and generous — so all travellers in their grotesque country assure us, — but in the same breath they tell us that without doubt the Tibetans — and of the Tibetans their swarming monks and nuns — are the dirtiest people in the world . . . and the most prayerful. So herd is an instance Hi which cleanliness being climatically impossible, godliness, prayerfuinera, takes its place, and yet leaves us totally unsympathetic.

"The Yellow Peril," the "Industrial Supremacy of tli3 World,'' the "Balance of Power between East and West," what are these phrases and all the tremendous issu.es that lie behind them to the average woman? On the other hand, the sympathy of i this motherly duchess and the intelligent charwoman alike goes out to the Japanese in virtue of their cleanliness, their neatness, their sobriety, and a score of other domestic virtues whese savour is sweet in the nostrils of every true woman ; whereas the picture of the miserable Russian "moudjik," alive with vermin, coated with dirt, and craving for vodka, in whose fiery draughts he may alone forget his hopeless horizon, awakes pity, no dooibt, but it is pity allied to distasteful repulsion.

Thus we have looked at the subject of cleanliness from every point, and found it, as an indication of national worth, to be well nigh valueless, since it is only when practised l intelligently as a proof of personal self-respect that we can regard it as a virtue. We have seen that it may sink in its extravagant abuse to enervating splf -indulgence, as ■with the ancient Roman ; and in our own households belittle itself to irritating exactions and soulless starvation of higher and wider attributes ; and yet there remains a word to say — perhaps, like the postscript of a woman's letter, the most important word of all !

To my mind, the sense in which the old proverb grow proverbial was in a deeper sense than personal cleanliness, or "the washing of oup and platter" — it reached to the &oul, and tlio things which feed it and clothe ifc, the thoughts. This I take it as the cleanliness which comes next to godliness : the pure heart, the- clean conscience, the mind in such close accord with Nature that it "thinketh no evil," the life that in its simple directness keeps itself "unspotted from the world," and all its gold-inlaid shams. It was of those who by speech or suggestion destroy this cleanliness, which comes next to godliness, that Marion Crawford thought when he wrote "Whoso Shall Offend." EMMELINE.