SAINTS OF THE 20th CENTURY

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3421, 18 February 1936, Page 3

SAINTS OF THE 20th CENTURY

Wealth And Fame Spurned I, By Men Devoting Their Lives 1 To Welfare Of Native Races

IT ia the foible of the living to flatter the dead. Veneration of the past, its story, its alleged glory, its scented sinners, its haloed saints, is a convention few escape. Saints gather sanctity with the centuries, passing away as memories of mere men to emerge as legendary figures stripped of most human attributes. If one speaks of St. Francis of Assisi, of St. Catherine of Sienna, of St. Thomas Aquinas, and the rest, it seems quite natural. But suppose one begins to talk of St. Albert of Lambarene? You may well be forgiven for raising an eyebrow an inquiring after the identity of this individual. So, too, it is probable that you would fail to recognise St. George of Africa —though you may have heard of St. Clara. Even so it would not be the St. Clara I have in mind, writes Sir Herbert Barker in the “Daily Mail." \ These are a few names taken at random, and they belong to a smallish band of living men and women destined in the fullness of time to adorn what I might call the New Hagiology, or Lives of the Saints. Well, who are they and what is their title to canonisation? Take first St. Albert of Lambarene.

Wealth, honours, the easy plaudits of an unthinking world, these things he put aside to serve the lowly and the needy. It was self-abnegation, sacrifice, holiness. The world knows this man as Albert Schweitzer, medical missionary. I think of him as St. Albert of Lambarene.

Have you ever heard of St. Wilfred of Labrador? Possibly not, but the name Grenfell of Labrador will be familiar enough. They are the same. Up that bleak coast where ice, breaking from the Arctic fields, passes in spectral floes towards the Atlantic sea paths live lonely men. They trap, fish —somehow contrive to make a living. But the life is hard: they had

■ You may picture him as a well-set-up man with dark and lustrous eyes, firm mouth concealed by heavy moustache, and well-modelled nose and chin. Imagine him under a pith helmet, in white ducks, against a background of French Equatorial Africa, and you have a concrete image of a saint in our own day. The world knows him as Albert Schweitzer. He took a triple doctorate at Strasbourg, qualifying in Medicine, Music, and Philosophy. At 30 he was offered the Chair of Theology in his alma mater. A dazzling academic career lay before him. He declined that offer, resisted the entreaties of friends, took train to Paris, studied tropical medicine, and iet out for darkest Africa. That was many years,, ago. Malaria, yellow fever, leprosy, sleeping sickness/ blackwater "fever, abysmal ignorance and superstition—these were the things this modern saint faced and fought.

no doctors, schools, amentities. That was, until Wilfred Grenfell dedicated his life to their service. Grenfell of Labrador lives for these people, gives himself for them,- works for them, speaks for them: loves them. A saint?" L think so. St. Clara has been swept into oblivion by a world preoccupied with the business of hate. She was merely

a nurse, by name Clara Mead. Her story? As simple as sublime. During investigations into the cause of yellow fever and work towards a cure it was found necessary to make a dangerous experiment upon a human subject. Clara Mead volunteered. She was told it meant probable death. Her answer was to hold out her arm for the needle. So sJie died, as she had lived, for humanity. Do you award her a halo? Without question. As for my St. George of Africa, the world remembers —or forgets—him as Sir George Turner. For years Dr Turner fought leprosy in Africa. He returned to England for rest. One day he noted a spot upon his head. He was doomed. There remained, however, considerable time. So, isolated from his fellows, this great spirit studied the disease that slowly ate into his body. When he could no longer use his limbs he dictated. He laboured until he died. On his death-bed he was knighted. What is such a life but sainthood?

After all, holiness is no affair of; cloistered innocence. The saints of ! the modern world go up and down' in it. They are workers for humanity. Without love there can be no holiness. We are sometimes told that life is a wolf’s game, that men beneath the' thin veneer of civilisation are but' jungle beasts seeking whom they may ; devour. It is a philosophy ; but .there’ are others. **

There is, for instance, the philosophy of that fascinating figure James, Grant, in “Empty Victory,” who leads) the world to disarmament through the J application of a doctrine two thou-1 sand years old. The author projects j us into the future for liis tale; but! he draws upon the past for his philo- j sopliy. / Along the crowded streats, jostling ! your fellows at every turn, you pass, maybe, some shabby old woman, some' man upon whose face is set the insignia of an inward peace. You will never know who they may be. They may be mere mortals. struggling to survive in a harassed world. On the other hand, it is just possible that they are saints, unheralded, unrecognised by a busy, selfseeking world. The living wear no haloes; they are reserved for the dead. But the halo does not make the saint, nor do the centuries sanctify. Service, self-sacrifice, holiness, and love. Great words, but not to be reckoned as attributes of men and women long since dead. The saints are with us still. The tragedy is that we so seldom . recognise them.until they have gone to their reward.