SOCIAL BORES.”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4912, 7 December 1925, Page 4

SOCIAL BORES.”

A “HOT-POINT TALK.”

REMARKS BY REV. F. E. HARRY.

In his "hot-point talk” before the sermon in the Vivian Street Baptist Church, Wellington, on Sunday (states the “Dominion”), the Rev. F. E. Harry discussed "Bores.” He said: “Bores tire us, They get on our nerves. It may be the monotonous voice ; it may be their cantankerous spirit; it may be their dismal, pessimism ; it may be their fault-finding habit; it may be their loquacious egotism; whatever it is, they are a nuisance. We find them in all vralks of. life. We that what interested us; will fascinate buttonhole us, or they drop into our office and try our patience sorely. May be that they are a< part of life’s discipline, that God permits them to try us so that character may be perfected. To bore is to pierce, to penetrate, and there is nothing punctures patience like the monotonous tones and topics of the social bore. And we are not here to annoy others, but to help them; wfe are not in this, world .to bore, tjut to bless. Is there not at the back of all boredom a kind of conceit that blinds one to facts, a conceit that is born of real ignorance of human nature? Could we "see bursels as ith’ers see us’ we should avoid boring them with our vapid sentimentalism or our puerile piffle. Yet the world is full, of bores. There is the horsey man who knows nothing about actual horses yet can .talk about nothing else than the turf. There is the political bore, who is obsessed with his political beliefs and legislative policies. Then there is .the bore of the street, profane, selfish, ever thirsty, with hardly an idea outside of his. appetites, and with not enough brains to give him a headache. The fellow who thinks he can get something ‘good’ for nothing had better vfeit a mental specialist. We ; all. have a tendency to talk ‘shop,’ to think that what interests us will fascinate other people. The ‘ real art of conversation Ist in evoking .the ideas of others, and in discussing what really interests them. Efficiency is learning what you don’t know, and using wisely what you do. Considerateness is a rare. virtue; it is one of the minor moralities of life. Neighbourliness we all like. The spirit of aloofness, in pride or prejudice, is fatal to real social life. The martyr spirit, may be harsh and uncompromising, hard, and unsympathetic.

Many a man who would burn well never displays ( any pity or .tehderness' j he is more familiar-with a whip than with a caress. We do not condemn him. Grace may soften him. The late Professor Drummond told us that when he was in Central Africa he went to sit down on a fallen tree, and it collapsed beneath his weight. Its substance had been eaten away by ants, leaving nothing but the shell . In our sappy New Zealand timbers the borer does its deadly work. He gets into churches, and even into pulpite, for we have heard of ‘dry rot’ being there . In an oil neighbourhood a minister one day discovered on his pulpit cushion these ‘lf you do not strike oil, in fifteen minutes, stop boring.' Of course, hearers vary, and what interests one will send another to sleep. Vast issues, depend upon the clear presentation of the evangel. Dullness, however, will, not be tolerated in pulpits or on platform?; Alexander Pope wrote on the flyleaf of his prayer-book in church, one day : ‘I whisper, gracious God, What have I done tb merit such a rod, That this great shot of dullness now should be From this Thy blunderbuss discharged on. me?’ "Of all New Zealand bores to-day the Licensing Reform Association is the worst,” continued Mr Harry, who proceeded tb deal at sbme length with the licensing question.