SHORT CUTS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 10, Issue 618, 13 June 1866, Page 3

SHORT CUTS.

One of the most important of the many differences between wise men and fools is that the one puts no trust in short cuts, • while' the.others are continually wasting time and hope and energy in trying to find them, and then in floundering back into the main road again, to see the wise man ever so many miles ahead of them. And of all the short cuts by which it is proposed to avoid'the inevitable, none is so popular, ,or so delusive - either, as that in which the Heidelberg Professor advertises his belief—the conviction that we are sure to arrive safely and easily at the end of the journey if ,we will only talk and write porseveringly enough. We shall get all we want if we write prize essays, or, supposing we cannot write them, if we diligently read them. Observe, all this does not mean that we are to while the tedium.of the way with talk, but that is to be our single motive power. Suppose a man has allowed a number of bad habits to get the mastery over him, as Count Bisiharck has got the mastery over Germany, if he is of the professorial temperament he will shudder at the thought of dispelling his tyrants by setting a violent moral revolution on foot within his own mind. He wants a more comfortable method, and he would gladly give a thousand florins, or any other sum, to some ingenious person who could instruct him in the delightful art of exterminating vices without pain or confusion. The idea of recovering moral freedom by a courteous, gentle, sympathetic treatment of one’s self is not at all more chimerical than the dream of recovering political freedom by polite suasion an 1 prize essays. There is some novelty in the introduction of this idea into -public affairs. Among individuals it is perhaps as old as the race. It is natural that people should shrink from what is painful, and we cannot reasonably expect a man to admit with cheerful alacrity that the disorder from which he knows himself to be suffering can only be successfully dealt with by means of knife and cautery. He prefers to delude himself with the hope that a few doses of not too unpleasant physic will work as complete a cure as he stands in need of. In the case of bodily ills, this playing the fool with himself is sure to come pretty speedily to its end. The body revenges itself for all these cheats that are attempted to be put upon it, with swift and visible vengeance. But the more perseveringly and audaciously a man cajoles his moral eight, the more tricks he plays with his own self-respect, the less sensible does he become to the mischief that he is breeding within himself, and the more facile a prey to renewed cajoleries and more infatuated deceptions. Some men flatter themselves that they have an uncommon eye for moral country. They admit that, in seeking for happiness by self: indulgence, they have somehow gone ■wrong, and got no nearer to the desired end.: But they' will not listen to a suggestion that they; should return, with what force is left them, into the neighborhood of the' beaten track, and they stubbornly refuse, to recognise that they have got themselves into a; moral cul-de-sae. Insisting that they discern this or that way out of the maze,' they only- get from • one alley to find themselves fast enclosed in another. The silver thread of self-denial which would conduct them back into the path is unobserved, while their feet wander at random wherever an uncontrolled inclination leads them. In spite of the wretchedness which, for a time, may entail, they take heart of grace, and even while convinced that they have irrecoverably lost their way, , they still prefer the shugness of their cul-de-sae to the frowsy career of the Puritan, or the hidebound moral pedant. Fortunately, this is not the true alternative. . But even those whom' weakness of will, or a too great eagerness to reach .by a short' cut what is only attainable by prolonged plodding, or a radical misconception not only of the way to happiness but of its very nature, has led into straights and shallows, are not even there free from the tendency to Pharisaism which is so strong-in every sort-and condition of men. There is such a thing as a kind of inverted: Pharisaism, and it is no paradox to say that there are sinners and publicans in abundance who constantly thank heaven that they are not as other men ' are—meaning, by other men, the ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.— 4 Saturday Review.’

Bishop Monrad was ‘ a passenger on board the s.s. Phoebe, and has taken up his residence in Wellington for the present at Government House.

Several new churches have lately been erected by the Presbyterian body, in Otago. • On the 25th ultimo, a new church was opened at West Taieri, by the Rev. Dr. Burns, “ father of the Church in Otago.” The expenditure on this edifice was £1,677. On the 29th ultimo, a handsome stone edifice at Otago, capable of seating 250 persons, was opened for Divine Service by the Revs. D. M.. Stuart and W. Johnson. At Clutha Ferry, A chureh lias just been completed, though not yet opened.