THE SABBATH.

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20440, 5 March 1938, Page 18 (Supplement)

THE SABBATH.

CRYSTAL BEAUTY | The world is not a dreary place, j _ Nor beauty hard to see— I Tn-nirht I saw a winter moon ! Shine through an ice-hound tree! I —Ralph J. Donahue. AVOID WORRY Finish each day and be done with It. You nave done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. To-morrow is a new day: begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to he cumbered with your old nonsense. —R. W. Emerson. DANGER IN ISOLATION INDIVIDUALLY & INTERNATIONALLY Katharine Mansfield, in her Letters, wrote to a friend: "This world to me Is a dream and the people in it are aleepers. I have known just Instances of waking, but that is all. I want to find & world in which these instances are united. . . . What is important Is to try and learn to live —really live —and in relation to everything—not Isolated. . . ." This letter, written In 1922, so shortly after the er£ of the World War, indicated the general thought of men, waking from the recent nightmare. Such a cataclysm of separations was bound to begin a deeper search after men's true relationship to each other as Individuals, as States, and as a universe, says a contributor to the Christian Science Monitor. That the search is unceasing is manifest in the efforts towards a League of Nations, in world peace movements, toward co-operative organisations in business, and toward international conferences and agreements, which, if they come to little, yet show the deep desire which has reached the surface and will never rest until right relationship has put an end to Isolation —or separation—of every sort. The problem on which Miss Mansfield touched—that of learning to live relative to the rest of the world—finds ready Sympathy In Every Thoughtful Heart. There is constant evidence that men "muff" their opportunities to establish good relationships with one another. Suspicion, ancient foe to friendliness, still stalks the earth. The big bad wolf is always Ignorance. Shorn of his sheepish disguise —calle'd expedience, self preservation, national honour—any one of the dozens of names under which separation or isolation masquerades, he is reduced to nonentity, since ignorance is merely a lack of knowledge. Any condition which fosters Ignorance is always an arch enemy of relationship, a fact which can be illustrated by three stories. A good many years ago, la A certain section of the United States, tomatoes, now an everyday food, were considered poisonous. They were called Love ; Apples, and were picked on the vines ■ and set on the mantelpiece for decor- ! ation, but not eaten. Under this de- j lusion several persons who tried to eat them suffered ill effects. Pre- i sently, however, it was discovered ' that they were one of the best of : foods, and the same persons who had '

shunned them before ate them with pleasure. Neither the tomatoes nor f bp people had altered by any mysterious change, but suspicion was removed by knowledge and the relationship between tomatoes and men was established! Another illustration is that of a new house which was erected. It whs put up next another house which had been standing for some years, whose occupants had considered the vacant lot next door as their own. Bitter with ! anger over losing this outlook, they | Erected a High Fence ion the line to shut out the new, uni welcome house. The fence, however, being closer to their own house than to their neighbours’, darkened their own rooms, but did no appreciable damage to the newcomers' view. One day a big wind storm came by and swept the fence before it. The nightbours met at the line between their properly, saw each other for the first time face to face, discovered a mutual liking, and shook hands. "What about your fence?” asked the neighbour. "Shall we gather It together?” "Let it go," said the other sheepishly. "I put it up to get even, but it shut off our outlook.” A third story, about a dog and a parrot, illustrates the reactionary effect of ignorance. The parrot, having nothing to do, repeated some words he had heard but which meant nothing to him. Seeing the family dog In the room, he said to him loudly: "Sic ’in.” The dog, seeing nothing but the parrot, made a rush for the bird and came off with a number of feathers. Back on his perch, the parrot is said to have thought the matter over and then to have muttered: "The trouble with me is I talk too much." Here, in simple parables, is the sad story of mankind in his efforts to learn to live peaceably with nature, his neighbour ancl himself. Shutting himself oft*, through ignorance, from the bountiful good that is naturally supplied, he goes hungry with all nature at his command; darkens his own windows in trying to Isolate himself from his neighbour; and foolishly repeats catch phrases which he does not comprehend, thus bringing misfortune upon himself. llow is this inward Isolation to be cured with proper relationships? The task is so stupendous that all the worldly wisdom of centuries has made little Impression upon the problem. Obviously ignorance cannot be "magicked” away like a rabbit in a hat. But the growing demand of people, waking from their Nightmares of Separation, for the facts about the world they live in. will have Its effect. Were Is an old adage: "I cannot hate whom I understand,’’ and understanding is always prohibited by motives of revenge, hate, malice, greed, selfishness, carelessness. Only so long as men are willing to be kept in ignorance can they remain In its darkness. The way of neighbourliness and unselfishness is so simple and practical that intellect has gone on for nearly twenty centuries scorning it as a solution for isolation. Ignorance uses large words to tell nothing, while Christianity, the inclusive term for all right relationships, was first spoken in terms so 6itnple that a child might understand, yet so profound was it ancl so fundamental to all human happiness that it has been the basis for all law and liberty since its utterance on the shores of Galilee.