BROTHERLY WAY

Waipa Post, Volume 52, Issue 3705, 10 January 1936, Page 8

BROTHERLY WAY

BY SILENT PETER We have recently been told that it is not history which repeats itself, but historians who repeat themselves. Nevertheless, the history of scientific efforts to substitute beauty for ashes is exceedingly iterative without being in the least degree monotonous. The first reaction of primitive man to anything new in his experience was to give way to loud and uncontrolled laughter; the secondary reaction being fear of the innovation, followed by cruelty and persecution of the source of the presumed danger to the existing order of things. When Pasteur gave his specialised findings to the world, his ideas were received with a roar of incredulity. When Lister introduced his antiseptic methods, his system was opposed for more than twenty years, by doctors as well as by ■others. When Simpson first used chloroform for his operations, the use of the anaesthetic was objected to by a member of church leaders on the ground that it was contrary to the will of the Almighty that man’s sensibility to pain should be dulled even for a few moments. The antagonism at present in existence on the part of the majority of the medical profession to the cures effected by gland specialists has endured for the past sixty years. Orthodox gynaecologists and obstetricians are unmoved by the gifts recently presented to the world by British, American and German endocrinologists. Although we live in an apparently scientific era, there is still a considerable time-gap between proved discoveries and their application. Christian workers with a wide knowledge of world affairs are appalled by the incalculable amount of scientific technique being wasted and unappropriated by society for the relief of suffering and the prevention to a large degree of mental ailments.

Before the time of Copernicus, men held the provincial notion that the sun, the. planets, the stars all revolved around their great centre, the earth. Copernicus was denounced as a destroyer of faith, for his theories relegated the earth to the position of being a mere speck in the universe. We now know that knowledge does not destroy faith; it strengthens and extends it. We now know -hat intolerance of new ideas does not preserve progress; it impedes it. The church is as much concerned with the right trend of evolution as are the physical and mental sciences. It cannot be left to science alone to mould human thought on lines of that social morality which demands that the mentally and physically incompetent be cared for by the most highly scientific methods yet evolved. The task of the church has never been any easy one, and at the present time it is becoming increasingly difficult. The spiritual aspect of scientific progress may not be ignored, and unless the Christian is able to speak with a genuine understanding of the social conditions in which his work is carried on, he cannot utilise to the fullest extent that magnificent position in the vanguard of progress of which he should be the legitimate occupant. God still calls the churchman, the scientist, the economist and the politician to bind up the broken heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to comfort all that 'mourn, to give beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning, to build up the old wastes and to repair the broken cities of the mind.