For the Sabbath

Waikato Times, Volume 93, Issue 15311, 11 August 1923, Page 12 (Supplement)

For the Sabbath

A ROYAL GUEST. Yet if his majesty our sovereign lord Should of his own accord Friendly himself invite, And say "I’ll be your guest to-mor-row night,” How should we stir ourselves, call and command All hands to work! “Let no m-an idle stand. “Set me fine Spanish, tables In the hall, See they be fitted all; Let there be room to eat, And order taken that there want no meat. See every sconce and candlestick made bright, That without tapers they may give a light. “Look to the presence: are the carpets spread, The dais o’er the head, The cushions in the chairs, And all the candles lighted on the stairs? Perfume the chambers, and in any case Let cacli man give attendance in his place.” Thus if the King were coming we would do, And ’twerc good reason too; For ’lis a duteous thing To show all honour to an earthly king, And after all our travel and our cost, So lie ho pleased to think no labour tost, But at the coming of the King of Ilcavcn All’s sot at six .and seven: We wallow in our sin, Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn. Wo entertain him always like a stranger. And as at first still lodge him in the manger. —Anonymous. SHAME. ITS USE AND Alll'SK. Psychologists have traced ihe rudiments of shame to a special inslinet of self-abasement, which in ;ls undeveloped action is seen even in animals and in young clildi'en. But in the full sense of the word, shame implies a self-consciousness .vhicii is possible only in those who Have attained a developed moral life. lis powers are most obvious in -n oidrrod society whore its influence upon social behaviour for good or ill can scarcely lie. exaggerated. Like many other instinctive emo-

tions, shame may become Ihc sourc of tho highest moral life or tt cans of wrong-doing leading to the depil* of degradation. It is importanl ! distinguish true from false shann Men are as ofLen ashamed to do wiui they recognise :is right, or to so what they know to he true, as the, arc ashamed of doing or saying who they know to be evil. They drea; the criticism nr displeasure of others Public opinion is 100 strong for them and they lack the \courage to ru; counter to its standards. They an afraid of the prospect of being con dernned or misunderstood by then fellows, they prefer to comply wit! custom 0!’ current opinion rather Ilia: act in such a way as may rob then of general esteem. Shame can lea< men to a cowardice that implies tin forfeiture of all that is noble in theii manhood. It ties men’s tongue.when the truth ought to he spoken: it holds them back when somethin, ought to be done for righteousness it drives them to participate in wrong contrary to the clear commands oi conscience. The specious excuses of which false shame is a ready invento: cannot disguise its inherent meanness.

The plea it most often makes in its own defence is its most complete condemnation. It argues that at least no harm has been done by its silence or refusal to act against established conventions, as if tho sins of omission are venial in comparison with active wrong-doing. There is no moral justification for its plea. It is the coward’s hefuge. If it were not for false shame men would at once put an end to evils which but for their craven fear continue to oppress the world. Let them once overcome the fear of singularity and boldly oppose what is, after all, frequently nothing but unthinking acquiescence, and men will welcome .. their signal to rid the world,of evils which remain only because men are ashamed of doing what in their hearts they recognise to be trieir duty. Christ denounced this shame, and declared its condemnation. The early Church, in the days of its sore trial, could but re-echo the words of the Master, in its denunciation of those who, ( in shame of being identified with tne Crucified:,! renounced their faith in. Him.

But 'there is a noble shame which carries men far beyond the demands of. duty, and adorns the highest virtues. . Such shame is described by l'hucydides, who, when writing of the plague at Athens, tolls us how men wont to see their friends without thought of themselves, and were , ashamed to leave them. Where this ■ fear of shame of falling from the highest exists, a man holds within himself a motive which must keep him loyal to the ideal. His self-re-spect becomes a shield against unworthy 1 conduct and speech. Shame ' for him is the scout of virtue, and warns him early when that which is unworthy or evil comes within sight. The truest men feel shame most. Men less careful of conscience may count it a weakness to be avoided. But it will hot let men go until it has been repeatedly rejected. Its loyalty to a map is so great that whop, by passion or in premeditated wrong-doing it has been despised, it will still remain, as if to save, men, as it would seem, in spite of themselves. The shame which- follows wrongdoing, springing from the condemnation of ourselves,' and enforced, it may be, by the condemnation of others, becomes not less, but greater, as we desire to amend. Repentance Is but another way of saying that we must face the evil we have committed, see it in its miserable beginning, -its ’sinister growth, and its completed vileness, and put ourselves to shame. Thus in inflicts its tender vengeance on the wrongdoer. It .is humiliating but it brings its inspiration. Who can tell how often it prevents us falling in tlfe hour of temptation? Shame has a high social*-office if we would but accept its" ministry. We oannot separate ourselves from oth- ’ ers. We are what we are through fellowship with them, and when we : are morally alert the sins of the community in which we live must bring us shame. Our national life would be immensely purer to-day if good men were sufficiently alive to the shame of that 1 which mars and corrupts our social customs, our commerce, our politics, and our international relations. It would rouse them to a moral zeal which would clear the community, not only of those grosser devices which degrade our corporate life, but also of those no less treacherous conventions which hinder, though they do not destroy, the fair graces of brotherhood and peace?' No catastrophe can be so complete in the moral sphere as shamelessness, the Apostle pointed to the last sentence of moral baseness when, in describing the shamelessness of the old pagan society, he declared that God had given them up to a reprobate mind. Milton’s scorching lines on sin and death do not describe so poignantly the moral end of tiiose who, having sinned and' sinned again in scorn of knowledge and in spite of conscience, reach the awful but inevitable result of finding an unhappy pleasure in moral perversion, and, making evil their god, destroy all that tends to preserve the truth and honour of life.