WHITHER BOUND?

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 37, 27 February 1937, Page 10

WHITHER BOUND?

We have been busily engaged in building a civilisation, a vast complex of implements by means of which to live, but we have not with any similar intelligence and care been engaged in creating a culture of spiritual ends, personai and social, for which to live. In the mordant phrase of G. Lowes Dickinson, we have been "contemptuous of ideas but amorous of devices," till now mankind stands, its hands filled with devices, but as bewildered and unhappy as mankind has been for centuries. So, , ages ago, Jesus said, "A man's lift consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Those words applied to indiyiduals one by one, seem obvious enough but to-day they go deep as a searching diagnosis of our social- ills. Let a nation, amass things without end, even though they be the marvellous apparatus of our modern civilisation, but, if that is all, it is pathetxcally not enough. Ingenious devices to live by, without worth-while ends to live for, a material civilisation without a soul to guide.it, like a magnificently furnished ship with no idea what port it is supposed to be headed for — tbat background lies behind every lesser problem that confronts mankind, to-day. For three lifetimes wo have been engaged in building civilisation, as though man's life ever could consist in the abundance of the apparatus which he uses. But this other- realm, where man's real life lies, his spiritual culture, the profound faiths that give life meaning, the profound goals that give life direction how often has that been popularly treated, as a decoration, an afterthought an addenduml And now the God of judgment has spoken, i as though to say, There is on e'nd to thia road you are travelling except irretrievable perdition; if you love your lives and your children, recentre your attention. Only one thing supremely matters to mankind to-day, the quality of spiritual life which will use these amazing implements. And you, Church of Christ, call men — though you have to do it one by one — call men to see this towering fact that civilisation is nferely what we use and that the destiny of man lies in the' quality of life that uses it. In our homes, for .example, it is not dilficult for parents to hand down ' to children the civilisation developed ih our time. The young take to Victrolas, radios, automobiles, and all the gadgetx and devices of civilised society, as ducks to water. But not so simple is it to hand on to them profound spiritual culture. From the love of great music to the love of Christ and all He stands for, parents canpot give that to children as they give telephones and automobiles. . tremendous onward ma^-h of civilisation and this appalling lag of spiritual culture are not simply a Planetary problem; they constitute the problem in how many families to-day! The houses in which we live coine from civilisation but the homes for which we live are the fruit of spiritual culture, and as one sees some houses and, some homes within them the description holds good, "improved means to an unimproved end." Which predominate in your life and mine, external means . or spiritual ends?— H. E. Fosdick.