MASTERY AND MYSTERY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4921, 4 January 1926, Page 3

MASTERY AND MYSTERY.

EVERY MAN’S PROBLEM. The problem before every man of the most practical kind is mastery. He seeks to know how to be master of himself, of tumultuous passions that arise in him, of other people, and of events.

The rule of life is that one must eat or be eaten. One must subject his surrounding to himself or must be subjected to . them. The problem, therefore, is how to attain the mastery. Anything that will show us how to cure disease, how to overcome our mental limitations, and how to utilise our passions, is a welcome hint in mastery.

It is one thing everybody is interested in. When you pick up a paper you find many departments, financial, sporting, society and so forth. There are certain people that are interested in each of these departments, but there are many people who do not read any one. One man, for instance, never will look at the sporting page. Sports do not interest him. Another never looks at the fashion column. And so on.

But there is one problem that is interesting to every person that passes by on the street, whether it be a bishop or a bum, a princess or a prostitute. That problem is how to make the most out of one’s life, how to overcome difficulties, and how to attain mastery. It is because religion subtly helps us in this struggle that it is eternal interest to the human race.

Another source of continual interest is mystery. It is a mystery how we came here. How a man with his memory and hope and imagination, and other faculties grows from an omorphous lump of matter no one can explain. It is a mystery where a man goes to. The greatest poets and philosophers have faced death and made their speculations, but we of this day know about as much of what takes place after death as those of the Stone Age. Our, little island of knowledge will always be but a speck in a vast ocean of mystery. Strangely enough, this environment of mystery has its effect on the human soul. From it there come hopes and dreams and impulses that cannot be reckoned with by logic. We can never rid ourselves of the essential mystery of life. Religion is founded in this mystery, and those who can throw light upon it are invaluable.