THE SUMMING-UP.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 963, 13 March 1917, Page 4

THE SUMMING-UP.

For a general rule of conduct I am going to offer yon first a motto. It L> this: Make your life. Do not let it be I made for you. That is a good motto; it means that, if you accept it, you will! grow month by month in fearless, constructive ability, and that you will become, what each living human being is! meant to be. a creator of life and of ideals. Tt means that you will strengthen your nerve and face life buoyantly and with courage (writes Louise Collier Willcox in the "Delineator"). Fear and timidity are breeders ofi most of the mistakes, frailties and fail-' ures in the world; so T want, to advise you to pick up your courage —whateveri stock of it you have—in both your hands and add to it month by month. Face, life and say: I don't expect you to come easy to me, but what is the worst, you can do? Kill me? Well. death is no more than the open door to a bigger adventure! Deny me the glitter ami gaiety that 1 see around me? These are mere baubles that break when I grasp them. Make me suffer f That is the greatest means to a bigger consciousness and a higher understanding of life. What, O Life! is the worst you can do to me? If you can sap my courage, break my buoyancy, hound me into a hole, then, indeed, you have done the worst for me. Rut that lies in the realm of my own choosing! To the last I will chase and not be chased: to the final breath. I will stand up after every knock-out blow; to the end of the way, 1 shall be game, following my own pursuits, propping up my own ideals, making my life as I want it. The whole problem of dealing nobly with the world depends upon courage; upon the courage which starts by saying, "I will make my life"; upon a firm determination to Ik' a creator of circumstances rather than a victim. You may wonder that I began with character and am following it up b r conduct. It is because I believe the bond that connects character and eonduct is so close that it is hard to tell just where one leaves off and another begins. But in the main 1 like to deal with fundamentals. If I see people smile, T want to believe that under the?; smiles lies friendliness; and. if (hey cry, T want to believe that they are sorry. So I began to talk to you about fundamentals, your soul or your character. Now I want to talk about conduct, the outward and visible sign of character. The Secret of Fine Living. The Greeks of old had a hero, a sort of superman or demigod, named Herakles (Hercules), who was always courageous and always strong. While he still lay in his cradle he strangled serpents, and when he was grown, a friend, a man who had shown him hospitality, was robbed of his wdfe by Death. Then Herakles never hesitated a moment, but went straight down into Hades to wrestle with Death. He took back the woman to her husband, who was somewhat of a coward. It is the life of Herakles that I want to bring before you. He walked through life doing good, regardless of consequences, wherever he saw any good that might be done. An English poet says of him: "He held his life, out lightly on his hand for any man to take." Believe me, if you arc going to listen to my counsels at all, that is the secret of fine living. Do not be afraid; tiiis scrap of life, as you see it now, is lot all of us, or all of our fate. Do not be overcareful to save your life or to protect it or yourself or your happiness. Hold your life out lightly on your hand to let whoever needs you take some of it. If you need higher authority for the same virtues, I can give it to you. I can tell you, at the same time, that nothing is more amazing to the student of life than the way the Eternal Verities harmonise wherever you look for them, 'way back in the Indo-Aryan sacred books, or in the Greek and Roman mythologies, or in the Old Testament, or in the final gospel that we all try to interpret and live by. Customs indeed change. All the externalities alter and seem alien in other ages, but the fundamental truths are the same. T defy you to find a religion of any sort that does not say in some way or other: "Fear not. He who would save his life must lose it." So hold your life out lightly on your hand for any man to take. A True Paradox. It is a strange paradox, but the truth, that you will be the richer for what has been taken from you of your own giving. Just in so far as you are brave enough to lose your life, you will find you have it—only bigger, transformed. There is an epitaph on a tombstone, and the great English painter Watts made it a motto for the picture of the death of a rich man. It says: "What he saved, lie lost. What he gave, he hath." It is the law of life. Life grandly given rebounds and enriches the giver, like love, or friendship, or kindness, or charity. It all returns to you after many days, and it .beautifies and adorns life. As we think, so we are. If we waste

life thinking about safety and personal gains, we are likely to become poor, wretched misers of life, hiding our useless treasure. But if only we give freely and with high courage, somehow we create beauty and lovely feelings, like gratitude and friendliness and bright faces and merry talk, and buoyant, hopeful human beings all about us. So for a maxim of life take as your motto: Make your life. Do not let it be made for you. Here in your hands is placed that inestimable gift—a life. on its way to immortality. Accept the responsibility of it, take up the initiative*, and say: Good! I will dare to be brave and free and high-spirited. I will stop to think how I can use my gift nobly and courageously. I will make a brave, happy life of it, useful to all who see me. 1 will learn and practise conduct suitable to each age as it comes to me.