Social Moods.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 426, 14 July 1904, Page 2

Social Moods.

FEELINGS AND THE IB ÜBE. ' SKN contending-and rightly contending M -for the supremacy of faith in the itfc religious life, it is to be feared that the emotions do not always get their due, Oftener than not they are placed under a b*n, as though they were traitors plotting to un&urp the place of faith. Yet it is bard even to conoeive of faith apart from feeling. A touching incident which i went the round of the papers some time ! ago may help us here. An emigrant ship cleared out of the Mersey one night, bound for New Toik, On the return of the tender which had taken out the last passenger, it was found that two children—a little brother and sister—were still on the tender, wbils their mother was on board the ship which was now being borne outward too swiftly for anyone to overtake. What suspense that mother must have had! Till she landed on the other Bide she could not tell whether her children were alive or dead—Mien overboaid / or somehow still safe on land. When she did reach New York, and found a cablegram waiting her saying, ' Children safe, and will arrive by next steamer,' then there is no questioning the mighty rush of feeling that would go surging through her heart. She had only the cablegram to go by—a mere sheet of paper with some words written upon it—but the moment she believed it was genuine, ho v her heart would bound! In a time like this yon would expect faith and feeling to be inextricably mixed. But—and this ia the point—her faith would Bhow itself through her feeliags. And it always does, and must, so long as we are constituted as we are, though it might not be so evident in every instance as in this. But it is hard to believe in anything or anybody without the feelings being stirred to one extent or other, though sometimes the feeling is so faint that we are hardly aware of it. We havß apostolic sanction for that statement, for it is written, 'Faith worketh by love.' That is the whole case in a nutshell. Faith is not a mere dream; it ia a living force; it passes into action—it works, and works by love—and if anything is a feeliHg, love is, yet here it is authoritatively declared to be the motor-power of faith Faith without feeling, aocording to this showing-, is an engine without Eteam $ all the parts may be perfect, the machinery may be of the best, but till love is present faith can t work Here then we get a glimpße, not only of the relation which feeling has to faith, but also of the purpose feeling is meant to serve It is not a rival: it is an incentive. Till we understand this we waste power as an engineer would if he blew off steam when there was a stiff gradient to face or a heavy freight to draw. As we are always coming under the iafluence of feeling, it is well that we should keep ia mind that feeliag is the raw material of force; what we need is not so much the driving power—we have all plenty of that —as the knowledge how to engineer it properly. Boughly speaking, there are three classes on whom feeling acts in different ways. There are the impressionables—those who, like Macbeth, are * open to all the skyey icfluences'—quick; to respond to any mocd or emotion that is brought to bear upon them from without. Like Bailing ships, they depend on the winds 5 if these are favourable, all goes well; if they drop they lie becalmed; if they are adverse, they must tack and taok, or drive before the gale. Of this sort are the susceptible natures that are enthusiastic over some new scheme, but are ever leaving it off in the middle for something fresher. They work well while they are working, but a rebuff, a slight, a cold look is enough to destry all their fervour. They depend on what is outside them rather than on what is within.