Gleams from the Gloom-Lands

Horowhenua Chronicle, 27 May 1913, Page 2

Gleams from the GloomLands

(Contributed)

"The people who walk in dark ness" formed the theme of a writoi who lived over 2000 years ago. 1; was not the mere quest ol the quee' lhat prompted this quaint poet t enshrine the gloom-wrapped folk i. his writings. They were the ohjec to lieir ol a great pity and a grvai passion. lie peered into the m lire regions of perpetual night, an saw the darkness of ages gathered i rolled heaps over these death-shad owed minds. But as he looked, saw the gleam of a groat light break ing on the gloom-lands. The up turned, silhouetted faces caught an< reflected the gleams. Their ay star of knowledge had come.

Two millenniums have passed, an', yet the murky shadows of dense ig norance lit in thick folds over peoples who are as the dust of the desert for multitude. From depths ol mental and moral gloom, as from subterannean cavities of volcanic energy, glow and leap fierce fanatic files, intense patriotisms, worlddestructive forces. Here lies our Yellow Peril, Black Peril—the peril of a tragic ignorance; the peril ol half-knowledge new-throned in barbaric minds. We turn, therefore, with a dreadful interest, to these shadow-peoples who are massing on the frontiers of civilization. "We look with an appealing expectancy to the gloom-maddened myriads win have nursed their patriotisms and sharpened their hatreds from the exteruities. We gaze with terrified curiosity is perchance there be a great light breaking among tin shadows—a day-star to banish tin blackness —a sun of brotherhood an< boundary-leaping love to prevent tin horrible and bloody impact of east

and west. And as we look wo shall see that gleams are penetrating hero and there among the right-dwellers of , these vast lands. Upon China. India. Africa. .South America, upon the islands of the seas, upon them all the light shined. We are not without evidence of the morning, portents of the dawn. Among other agencies, missionary enterprise has blazed the track for the commerce of the nations to mutual advantage; 't has paved the way for the introduction of knowledge on safe lines—a knowledge which, while it stimulates. will also restrain; it has also laid the foundations for the destruction of racial animosities and the I upbuilding of a world-spirit of amity and mutual forbearance. One evidence may be given of this last statement. Men who know the Kast tell us that racial and national self-consciousness is growing in China and -Japan. There is a call from some quarters in these lands to violently oppose Christianity. That is not new in itself, but the ground on which it is based is tremendously significant. "Professor Kato. ol the Imperial University of Tokio, lias raised the cry that charity is ! universal in its aim, and therefore ■antagonistic to the intense national spirit of Japan." What a compliment that is to the manner in which

the Christian religion has Loon presented in Japan! And surely they will soon see that Christianity, properly received, will strengthen true national patriotism, while it links the nations in a groat workl-federation for the peaoe and progress of all.