THIS WORLD OF OURS

Hokitika Guardian, 29 May 1928, Page 4

THIS WORLD OF OURS

CAN IT BE SET IN ORDER 1- " Can we set l lie world in order. 1 '” That we can is the belie! of Miss Maude Hoyden, noted feminist ■ and lecturer, who gave her public address in Auckland recently to an audience which filled the East Street Hall. The Governor-General and others werp present. The Deputy-Mayor presided.

The title of the lecture was an indieaied in the opening sentence of this report. “ I have a feeling,” the speaker said, “.that both in religion and in polities wo should all like just about the same kind of world—a world in which we should have health, enjoj the kind of work we likecl to do, be surrounded by love in real homes,and he happy in struggling to achieve.’ Miss Iloyden laid great emphasis oi the importance of struggling to achieve because struggle is the essence of life. When she talked of setting the world in order she did not ask for champagne and oysters hut for daily bread, and for the removal of poverty am! distress.

In facing up to the enormous under taking of setting the world in order. Miss Hoyden said ,we were not coi{ fronted by an absence of goodwill but by an absence of power. While the world lacked prophets and leaders who were able to give a sense of power, there was one place where, instead o helplessness, .there was a sense ol power so tremendous that it was at once terrifying and inspiring. That place was the laboratory of applied science. “There,” said the speaker, “you are in the persence of power so great that it seems to make men gods, and L believe that in future ages your children’s children will not think of this era as an era of the aeroplane or of radio, hut as something great or than that, an epoch in which the atti tiule of man towards the world under went a revolutionary change.” Declaring that God intends us to use our intelligence not to adapt ourselves to the world, hilt to adapt the world to ourselves. Miss Rovden, with graphic touches, illustrated how science, by overcoming pestilences and grasping the meaning of catastrophes, is setting the house of the natural world in order. “Contrast this,” she said. “with the attitude oi religious leaders to the ago old problems of poverty and war.” The secret, site added, was that the whole basis of modern science rests on the belief that Nature is trust-worthy,-jn other words, that Nature

governs by laws. “ To me.” added the speaker, “ tinmajesty of God in Nature is a thousand times more worshipful than a God who is .sometimes depicted as being inserut able and not easily understood. Christ proclaimed a God of love, and he neve: reproached ills disciples for no! lovin; Liim —He knew that they did—but He reproached them for nor understanding Him. Like the laws of science are the laws nf your being. You cannot break those laws, but if you try to break tliem you will break yourselt against them.”

Jn tlie concluding part of her addles

Miss Hoyden gave her hearers a vision of a world i;> which spiritual laws would be fully availed of in setting the world in order, “ Let us go forward to the discovery of the grander meaning of spiritual power,” said the speaker. “ npd let iis put away this childish idea that we can abandon it if we wish. To understand anil obey the laws of God is the radiance which they phrase in our new Anglican Prayer Book—' Whose service is perfect freedom.’ To believe tally in Inn’ nnd order in the spiritual world in jin* twentieth century would be to make

an advance of power in our destiny, compared with which the achievements of science would be like the making ol toys for a child’s nursery. (Applause.) At the close of her address, Miss Hoyden answered several questions, and on the motion of the chairman, she was accorded a. most enthusiastic vote of thanks.