The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY. JUNE 30, 1934. CAVALCADE AND QUIET

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 153, 30 June 1934, Page 8

The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY. JUNE 30, 1934. CAVALCADE AND QUIET

QINCE Mr. Noel Coward gave Cavalcade to the worm, tne term has gripped. The world passes by to-day, not at the jog trot of the good old friendly horse, but at a rate of speed which exceeds that of a railway train. Even a short journey nowadays is made at a pace of something about forty miles an hour. The driver must keep his attention wholly concentrated on the driving of the motor-car. An error of judgment, or even a short period of forgetfulness may cost him his life, or involve him in a dangerous accident with serious consequences to himself and to others. This means that the strain is ever on the traveller. The good roads, with their splendid surfaces, the beautifully timed internal combustion engine, which, operates with silent efficiency, are all aids to speed, but they are all bringing more and more strain into the life of the individual. It is small wonder that the serious affliction known as “nerves,” is on the increase, that the number of men and women who suffer a “breakdown” now are so numerous that the calamity is hardly regarded as of sufficient interest to merit being discussed. The strain tells on the individual because of the unavoidable nature of the pace of life. Yet there is more to be done to counteract the effects of modern conditions by the individual himself than can be done for him. The individual still has it largely within his own power to create his own environment. He can, if he will, take up his residence in a quiet suburb, where the terrific noises of the city reach him like some muffled undertone of an ocean’s waves. He can still cut himself off from the noise of the market place, and he may still enjoy, if he will seek it, the quiet of the starlit hour.

Again, there are among the pages of the printed word, many quiet places where the soul may find surcease from speed. There are many people who find relaxation from their own affairs in the pages of a “thriller.” The late President Woodrow Wilson was one of these. But Woodrow Wilson was a nerve case before he died. On the other hand, the late Lord Asquith sustained his nerve right to the end of his life. He, too, found his solace in the printed page. But he was not so much concerned with the thriller. He could read the modern novel that was the subject of conversation in his social set. But he never felt that his mental stimulus or his recreation was completed by turning only to such modern efforts. He would go back to the spacious days of the early nineteenth century, when life was not so hurried, when men learned how to fill their minds before they emptied their pens. He even returned to the early fountains of inspiration, the Greek and Latin classics. Herein, of course, he was able to move with easy grace, and not with stumbling steps, because Asquith was of Oxford and Westminster. At Oxford he learned to be familiar with the past, while at Westminster he saw re-enactcd in the forum of the House of Commons the scenes of which he read in the Latin and the Greek. Human nature changes so very little down the ages. This turning back to the past for the quiet and the rest that history’s pages give, is a splendid antidote for modern hustle. It has its compensations in other directions also. For instance, Cardinal Newman was a stylist in his own right, but the early century novel, “Mansfield Park,” written by Jane Austin, was his especial joy, not only for the quiet of the atmosphere of that grand house, and the spaciousness of the days of that time, but for the very literary quality of the writing. While so engaged the mind of Newman was far away from the conflict and the controversies of his own period. He was the spectator of a period that was past, ho was not involved in the procession of events, and he could find no impassioned partisan feelings arising within him. He came to his quiet in “Mansfield Park.” The Reverend J. H. Jowett, the famous preacher of Birmingham, also turned backwards to find surcease from the press of current events. Whenever he went on his holidays he used to be sure to have with him a volume of Spurgeon’s sermons. Now Jowett did not need to lean on Spurgeon, for Jowett definitely stood on Spurgeon’s shoulders. It was not the theology, nor the exposition which Jowett sought of Spurgeon, but the character of the language which Spurgeon used. The mind of Jowett was away back in the last century, feeling the evolution of his own age in the events referred to by the great preacher of the last century. He escaped to Spurgeon’s tabernacle out of the disquiet of life. If men and women would make sure of having some retreat, mental as well as physical, they would find a surcease from the cavalcade of contemporary life, and would have a time for mental and spiritual renewing. It is the lack of renewing that causes so many to fall by the way in these days when the pace kills.