LOOKING BEYOND YOUR OWN HEDGE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 89, 1 May 1937, Page 12

LOOKING BEYOND YOUR OWN HEDGE

Canon "Dick" Sheppard.)

(By

There is a whole world of wisdom in the injunction to look beyond one's own hedge. In fact, we could apply it to an immense range of our social and religious duty. Like so many of the ctisp idiomfttic sayings with which our language abounds, this abont looking beyond one's own hedge is derived from the hearfc of English life. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that a hedge is typieally English. The division of rural seene by • which the hedges and ditehes are separated, arable and pastufe land alike, into innumerable small patches, always excites the exclamations of foreigners seeing it 'for° the . flrst time. l'hough they are nsually too polite to say so, I suspect it strikes them as symbolical of our famous insularity; which reminds me of a perfectly delightful headline which appeared in one of our great national newspapers a year or two ago. There had been & bad fog, and the second headline describing it read— Continent IsoJated, Well, we cannot help being insular in the physical sense, since our lot happens to have been cast in an island, but thete's a good deal to be dono about metap'horical insularity in the affairs of daily life and the things of the spirit. PART OF THE WHOLE. We all know how commonly it is the prfde of simple people, in the towns as well as in the country, that they keep tbemselves to themselves, It stands, of cpurse, for a kind of self» respect' and an hononrfible inflependehce. But if it stands also, a$ I fea? it often does, for a self*centted intorest, then it is elean eontrary to the Chtistian prOfession. We are all, says the Aposlde St, Paul, "membefa one of anbther," and that is a eondition which invqlves a good deal of looking beyond one sown hedge. If one member suffets, the whole body sufters— ra truth. which is -being^ fearfully illustrated at the pfesent time ia the aflaits of Europe, and, indeed, of the whole world. You who read this know far botfer than I do the praotical and litefal im« portance of "knowing the state Of things on the other side pf your boundary hedge, for a dilafory farmer on one side can do an unconscionable lot of damage to his neighbour's eropsl In the bigger sense we need to look beyond ouTselves and our concerns. There is a sense, of conrse, in which everyone of us may be said, in Stud-, dert Kennedy's phrase, to build a world of our own out of the things select to attend *to. We cannot, obviotisly, choose everything, but if we choose only those things which gratify our own desires we are bound to get our little world out of proportion. Life will sCem very pleasant, with all disagreeable elements shut out, until one- day it bumps into a world of reality. " Thon it will be shattered an|. we shall be broken-hearted. PAYING FOR PRIVILEGES. Privileges carry with » them responsibilities, and one of the responsibilil ies of our possessing a little world of oui own is to go outside it and take with us something of the blessing by which we have been enriched. A man may in all other respeets be an exemplary citizen, a model farmer and a good employer and husband and father, but if he is content to give all hia thought and care to his own little world, he is really, a f ailure on a large scale. His' f ailure to take his full part !» the life" of the commuiiity stands out in all the bolder relief'by reason of his good qualities. He is just the man who could, if he would, give most invaluable seryice, His known excellencies would carry weight, and he would be just ' the right sort of person to uphold good traditions and to set new ottes going. Ifl every profession, in every schoOl, community, and such like there havo been ,the g*ed traditions and the bad traditions. It would be a safe generalisation to say that nearly always the bad tradition has crept in tlirough selflshness,' and that the gOod tradition, of - which *all concerned are so " proudi is due to unselflsh devotibn— -to the a ctivity and example of the people whom we.sometimes speak.of as being on the side' of the angels. ON WHICH SIDEI • We all of ns need to ask ourselves, ";What am I doing tO maintain and extend good traditions? Am I on the side of God in the ordinary affairs at the world or am I not?" Let me take two simple instanees. Perh&ps you do not greatly care for the Rector of your patish. Maybe he is a man who is unused to the ways of the country and accordingly does not get, on as 'well as he might with Ma parishioners, He is a good man, but slightly at sea. *The real countryman, such as I have described, is just the man- w.ho could make a whole world of difCerencci If he will. resolve to. back up the Rector— to come out of his little world and put his hand to a jo.b of help and Vmcouragement which may not, at flrst, be partieularly cOngenial — he will be doiflg something of great value to' himself and his neighbours. Then there are the aft'airs of the 'loeal government authority. It is oue of the weaknesses of local government in this couijjry that so often the men best qualified to serve its needs are unwilling to put themselves forward. A PLAIN DUTY. There is nothing whatever for a mun. to preen /himself on in leaving it to Other people to take on such work. That frequently means that the wrong people get power into their own haqds, It is exactly the man who is not selfseeking that the country needs. I remember years ago Lord Rosebery saying that one should always regara with (

suspicion the speculative builder who stands for eleetion to the urban district council. But ' if the right people ptand aloof, the wrong people are bound to get in. I suggest, therefore, that betore xrz begin to make a virtue oi our selfcontained independence we ask ourselves whether there is not a plain duty, not only to look beyond our own hedges, but also to go beyond.\