Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 180, 14 November 1941, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied b\ T ihe Wluikat

SELF-RELIANCE

Last Sunday evening the Rev. E. S. Tuekwell delivered an address on 'Self-reliance,' taking as his text the words in Proverbs, 'Drink waters out of thine own cistern.' He pointed out how the trend of modern life was in the direction of discouraging independence of thought and action. From the moment Ave awoke until we tired to rest a thousand servants were waiting upon us. Countless hands were stretched out to save us moving our own. Innumerable minds had been busy to save us from doing, thinking, solving problems and overcoming difficulties for ourselves. We were overcrowded with comforts and conveniences. The genius of inventiveness had been engrossed in the search for making life easier. There were those who had set themselves the task of anticipating our problems, difficulties, and whims, and by all sorts of mechanical devices Avcre seeking to save us from doing anything original. We were being robbed of every vestige of selfreliance, until we could almost foresee the time when we should have become so perfectly "civilised" that our activities would be reduced to pressing a button or turning a handle. Emerson once wrote: "Society never advances. I,t recedes on one side as fast as it gains on another. For everything that is given something is taken. The civilised man lias built a coach, but lost tlip use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but fails cf the skill to teP the hour by the sun. A, Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so, being sure of information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. His notebook impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents."

Yet without the cultivation of selfreliance there could lie no strength of mind or character. To rely on others' actions and opinions instead of our own meant that we were mere echoes, imitators, monkeys. Nor in pleading for self-reliance did one forget the need of reliance upon God. There was no contradiction here. God wished us to be self-re-liant, bud God did not do for us what we could and should do for ourselves. He did not send lighl which we ought to discover, nor solve problems for us which we wer<» capable of solving for ourselves. He did not rob us of the discipline of struggle and research. Our reliance upon God began when he had come to an end of ourselves. The task of God was to inspire, evoke, encourage. God was a wise' Father, and held His Child only until He had learned to walk, and then He took His hand off Him.

Self-reliance would manifest itsel/ in the three following directions:— First, in a sane and vigorous belie! in oneself. Not, of course, in inordinate conceit. There was an intoler< able individual who believed sq much in him; who loved himself so heartily that others hated him just as heartily; who was so dogmatic that he was shunned by others as a conceited fool. Wise self-trust was based on the belief that we wen sent into life for a purpose, and had

na Minis! ers' Association)

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

power adequate l'or that purpose. Eivery door would open before thf resolute man. There was a diffident super-humble, self-distrustful soul who was positively afraid of attempting the difficult job. But If you. thing you're outclassed you are; you've got to think high to rise; You've got to be sure of yourself before you can ever win a prize. Life's battles don't always go> to the stronger or faster man, But, soon or late, the man who wins is the fellow who thinks he can. Secondly, self-reliance would be manifest in a refusal to live at second hand. "Make your own decisions," said the preacher, "don't take the cue for your moral life from another. Don't weakly do a thing merely because another tells you to. Think things through for yourselves. You will meet problems of thought and there arc three ways of facing them. The first is to dodge them, shelve them. The second is to take another's solution and swallow it whole. Some people put out their thinking as they do their washing. Their so-called convictions are only second-hand opinions. The third way is to resolutely think your way through. Seek every aid to help you to a right decision. Talk to wise people. Head good books. But masticate it all. Put it through the crucible of your own mind. Make i.t your own. Remember that what ycu borrow is easily lost, but what you| make your own by hard thinking you will keep."' Thirdly, self-reliance would manifest itself in a sturdy noncompliance, in a daring to be singular. Some folk exhausted a good deal of their lives in watching which way the cat jumped—the cat c.f convention —and that was the way they jumped. , They would sooner be caught breaking the law of God than violating the rule of convert* tion. They blushed less at doing shady trick than at pouring their tea in their saucer or wearing a bonnet that was out of fashion. "Who so would be a man must be a nonconformist." For such noncon* formity the world would chastise us. buit better that than consent to be a non-entity, and lose one's manhood. He did not suggest that they should go through the world defiantly, blundering along, careless of the feelings of others, and refusing to observe those rules of etiquette which were designed to make the machinery of life run smoothly. "But," said the speaker, "don't be a slave to convention. Don't do a thing or adopt a manner simply because society says it is 'proper.' Do it because it is right and essentially fit."

They must let their self-reliance express itself in the fine art of saying "no." They would be tempted, asked, virged to swear, to. listen to and repeat the filthy story, lo gamble, to ridicule sacred things, to drag the sanctity of womanhood in the dirt, to do the shady thing in business. Were they going to do these things because they were asked to" do them? Were they going to capitulate, to surrender theii soul? God forbid. They had a great fight, and a glorious, but he offered them a greater captain in Jesus Christ. To enlist under His banner meant victory.