THE CREATION.

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15443, 4 September 1914, Page 2

THE CREATION.

PROBLEMS OF EXISTENCE. Extraordinary interest was taken in :in address given by Sir Oliver Lodge in Sydney. under the auspices of tlio Central Methodist Mission. S'r Oliver Lodge. wiio spoke for about an iiour. delivered an address which made a very great- impression. Flo I'mmd it a great- responsibility, said the eminent scientist. to speak to an audience I ke that, and ho'had eomo a long way to speak in this gnat- country. In bethinking himself of a subject. he thought that lie had better ;u!di ■ess liim-e.f to some problems of existence, because lie toak it that in a cultured community like this. which had secured for itseli' a good deal more than the bare necessities of life, which had a high standard of comfort, anil which, therefore, iiail leisure to be thoughtful and studious, in considering w'itv we are here, what we are here for. and what ixistenco meant, there must bo certain puzxling topic upon which we might differ in opinion. and about which we ni'.ght hesitate to come to a hasty conclns.on. Jlo wished to say that he spoke with 110 authority; he was not speaking in the name of tile scientific men who were visiting these shores. Sumo might agree w\t!i him: some might not ; lie was oniv g.ving 'his own views to which ho had been led by time and study. CREATING AND DESIGNING. Dealing with the problem of the creation. Sir Olivi r said that looking round at the world, not only at the planet but at the whole host of heavens. they realised the infinitude of law and order. They realised that things had not occurred haphazard; that they hail not jumped into exists once as by'chaiicOj but there appeared ;i design running through it all. This had been controverted, and ti'.iore would be many present who would bo unable to accept That view. Hut- tlio period during which scepticism was most rifo was the period of lr's youth. He often heard Tyndall; he .- pent a year under Hux:oy. He was brought up in an atmosphere of scepticism, from a scientific. point of view ; but. from the domestic side that atmosphere was not unsaturated with relig'on. He was aware of the arguments, and he fe'lthe had come out on the other side. ; (Applause). AYe could only learn, being meii. by human analogy.* In science they had only the power of ascertaining j what actually is; they explored to discover the truth. In art there was what might bo called the power of creation. If Shakespeare hail not lived we wou'.d never have, had the play of Hamlet-: if Hoet'ltovon had not lived, we would not have had the Fifth Symphony ; if Raphael had not lived we would never have hail the Madonna. Materially, what were tlmso works of ait? Materially, a. picture was a few pigments just put together in a certain way. but the interpretation was mental, spiritual. MIND PRECEDES EXECUTION. To say that a poem or a piece of music, or any other work of art. arose without dt ;gn was simply preposterous. They learned by that analogy that when things were beautiful and ordered, and winch aroused our spiritual feelings, it was not merely an assemblage at atoms which produced it, but tho creative mind underlying it that brought it about and put it together. Mind preceded execution. Any great engneering work was conceived in the m ml of its designer first. Conception pr, foiled performnitf'.e,'and' tli£ conception of the artist was ol'ten far below his intention. The highest Personality that had ever existed on the planet must have been, in this sense, conceived by the Holy Ghost. The method of defining the creation was one of evolution. The conception was not a sudden flashing out, hut an evolution just as the bud evolved to the flower. Some people believed that the process ot evolution went on by itself, and they pointed sometimes to "tho evil and iniperfect'on which who to be fouiid in t.'.ie scheme. And so they got this problerii of evil which loomed very largely t in the minds of some people, seriously perturbing them, and tV'm accepting the full teaching of religion. In the inanimate part of the creation, they found perfectipn. aud that was the part they understocd most easily; but when fiity came to the animate, and especially the human, they found largo imperfections. AVhy? The answer. hi> believed, was contained in the word ireewill—freedom. The object was not to create a set of beings each of which should go right, but a set of beings wt.io of their own volition wero determined to go right. (Applause). There was a much higher anil more difficult problem than they could foresee —to bring into existence people who could th vart the Divine will. "\Yc al! had the power of going wrong. It would be asked, AVas all the strength of humanity worth the pain and evil which must, accompany it r" The majority of them would answer. Yes. , Tliey believed that the Divine Being in His iniiirto wisdom decided that it was worth the risk, giving clvory kind of help but leaving man free, to go wrong if lie so desired. And when this power of i-lioice was realised by humanity, which had come from very lowly ancestry. as they knew, from anima's which hail 110 senso and knew nothing of right anil wrong, when that power Was roal'sed. then the first human being came into existence—t'ile first man. (Applause*. THE FALL OF MAX. Hut. thov said, what about the fall of man ? Yes. the rise of man fivm lowly anciMry was a great comlort and hope. Let them not despise their 'lowly ancestry. We owed n great deal to the people akin to tho savage of the present- day. TlH.y made us puss.ble. In tlie.r struggle for existence they bail 'hard times. \Yo wero bui'ding upon the labour ci 1111111111iiable ty'.low-creaturiH. \Ye hail progressed some distance, and we were therefore hopeful tliatt we might progress much farther. The risu of man ami the iall of man were not inconsistent with each other. "You never stumble going upstaTs." sa : d Sir Oliver am : d laughter. Hut now came the problem of freedom and fr.lewill. and this was a problem that had exercised people troni t'me immemorial. There were many people who told them that they wHj-e not reallv free, nut that they were merely automatons—t'hat they could not do certain tilings. Iliasked them not to be confused by too much theory, but to trust to their own experience They m glit find difficulty in mobilising the d fferenie between fn eilom and foreknowledge. The i'orcknowl<.dge pressed bv the Doitv we i mild not hope t" understand. It was a theological problem of great, weight and importance, but it was something which hail tiA be reasoned into them. As to our freedom, we knew wo had linl it. The existence of freedom, the evoluiion of a free race of people, extended a great d' al to the iiiiiporloet nils and evil which existeil in the world. Science taught t'lioui that evolution was a reality, and was not a liiero doctrine. It things were not yet as pi rli ; t as they would lie. the universe iv as growing towards a perfection licit yet attained. In other words, evorvihing was not so pre-arranged and de-lin-tely determined that there was no r >k. The problem of i notion was a risk, lie roiild e■•ncenv that- the whole wild might have gone wrong. He could conceive t.iat it depended upon ourselves whether we went, wrong, and that the Deity was anxious abuit it. mi to speak, and desired our help; that w. had [lower In assist Ml the work of evolution, now that we had becenie lon-sim-us agents, iib'e to assist in the process of evolution by our own free wiii. Tin-n- were lii.-tuv ari'in-iU that as•istcd. The •ior.-i-s atta.-hed to a cart i.i the rity lo'lped » oiiine r Tlnv | i " 111 t Kl-O'.'. 'li the 1 e \\ 11:' f t||i'v

were doing, hut t-hov formed liifus in the complex chain; tlit'v were agents of humanity. 'Jlhey were not coerced; they Ave re guided THE "WHOLE SCHEME. And. so it was with manrjnunan beings. • They did nob know the whole scheme of which they "were a part. All we could do was to do t'he thing nearest us. He ventured to think, then, this world, with all its manifest imperfections. would bo seen by these who were able to look at it from a far higher point of view—perhaps by ourselves when we looked back a- few million years hence—as the best that could have been managed under all t'he Circumstances, and that, was what the phrase "The best possible world" really ought to mean. "'The best of all possible worlds'' ought to mean this; not that it was in any way near perfection at present. The imperfection was the instrument. which showed that the problem of Creation was real and not artificial, and that there was some effort to be made by us, not having obtained consciousness, in the promotion of' the scheme as a wliolo He believed that a distinct revelation of certain attributes had come down to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and that was a- tremendous problem, the relation of Clhrist to God. Many people felt great difficulty in realising the. Incarnation., how the Divine Spir't- could have taken form to dwell on earth, but, after all,,it was not so difficult. They did not place this as the whole of tlie'ir existence. bad these bodim for a time, but we were superior to these bodies, just as the soul of music was superior to the more instruments which were reproducing it and making it manifest. The mind and consciousness were not reailv dependent upon the instrument which manifested them. The Effects produced by telepathy, without- the intervention of any organ, indicated that mind and body were not inseparable. There were many existences of which our senses gave us no clue. Our eyes did not see them ; we could not touch tliem, anil yet- they were there. Ho believed himself that if our spiritual eyes were opened wo should perceive such harmony of love and srrvicit and divine agencies as would perfectly astound and bewilder. (Applause). THE TERRESTRIAL LIFE. Mercifully we were restricted for a t in.'. Our eves wou'd b.« opened, hut opened gradually. The whole blaze would be too much for-us at once. "Wo iiad to live our terrestrial life. Wo were here: we had our job to do. and we had better do it. We had certain Divine attributes: God had curtain human attributes, and these human attributes were manifested to mankind by that i'erj-onalitv which lived 1914 years ago. The human attributes of the T)eit.v were very manifest: not- all of t'he attributes: 110 human being cou'd imagine that the fullness of the Omlhead would be revealed, but that which ap.plied to -our human existence was shown (o us then and there. He a'so wished to cniphas'se tile fact that the 1) vine He."tig acted through agents, and that when we appeal) t| for assistance, help, and guidance, it was forth--1 inning. It was not Hcoly that man was alone extant in the universe. There be an infinitude of love and service. Whatever sp : ritua.l world t'Tierc would lie in the future there would b> now. The internal c.ciulition of each pcivon m : ght be such that whether t-hov were here or in what they ca'lrd t'he next world made very little d liVroilee. The next world! There was 110 next world. Il would be this one. It was only next because we were inv-ving on to ii. but il was here all the time. (Anplau-e). I In* Lord Mayor and tlu l cha'rmnn offered sincere thanks to S'r O'iver L 'dgo l'.>r li s very insp'rirg mrse. nuritlg the service M'ss Elsie Coii'l -n -■'ng clVec lively "The Lost Chord.''-