GENUINE ANTIQUES

Lake County Mail, Issue 14, 27 August 1947, Page 3

GENUINE ANTIQUES

Are you ever reproached by being called “ Old-fashioned? ” Possibly your principles, traditions, or ideas about morals or manners are challenged. You are regarded as a back number, narrow-minded, out of touch with present-day conditions and circumstances. You have been brought up to respect certain principles, let us say, about marriage or Sunday observance, courtesy, truthfulness, and so on, and yet you find that some peopel make light of your convictions, you are looked upon as peculiar and are labelled old-fashioned. What do people mean by this term old-fashioned? How soon does one come to that state? And is it really a bad thing to be old-fashioned? Some of us -have been old-fashioned all our lives for we have never held convictions other than those we learnt through life. The standards of morals and manners which we do our best to carry on are those which were handed down to us when, we were children. We may be conventional, and conventional ways are frowned upon by the “ Modern Age.” ties are shallow, and artificial. It is true that some arc shams, no thicker than veneer, and many have been proved worthless. Also we cannot enforce the same code of behaviour upon every individual or every country. One of the mistakes of mission societies has been that they have tried to force European clothing and civilisation on the native races of, for example, the Pacific Islands. Such enforcement will bring with it reaction against the conventions, which like criticism is a good tiling. But not all the conventions are shallow, and life cannot be lived without some such code of behaviour, unless it is to/ become chaotic and devilish. If there were no mode of defence against hooliganism, vulgarity, selfishness, and barbarism life would become unpleasant if not really dangerous. Christian morals and manners are very much more than a mere sticking to convention. They are not formed from any book of etiquette, they take shape and grow as part of the teaching and discipline of the Christian religion. Truthfulness, modesty, reverence, sympathy, unselfishness, these are some of the foundations of Christian morals and manners. In so far as we try to uphold and control our conduct on these principles, we as Christians should be quite content to be labelled old-fashioned. As John Buchan once wrote, “ Civilisation is not a‘ cushioned life made possible by science; it is not a mechanical apparatus, but a spirit.” The spirit which has established a Christian civilisation is the spirit of |ur Lord Jesus Christ and the religion of the Church wlieh He founded. You may call that spirit old-fashioned, and so it is—2o centuries old; but it is the only spirit which has proved that it can be all things to all sorts and conditions of men, the only cure for all sorts of upsets. The old-fashioned Christian will always be up-to-date, if, us'S. Paul says, he “continues in the faith grounded and settled; and not moved away from .the hope of the 5 Gospel.” “ Not moved away! ” Some people still say that the church should move with the times, to move with the world. But the mission of the church is not to move with the world, but to move the world. It was with good grounds for, their alarm that the mob of Thessalonica, when taking Jason and his companions before the magistrates, cried, “These that have turned the world upside down, have come hither also.” Not so many years ago people scrapped the old-fashioned furniture of their dwelling to buy “ The’super-deeper dining room suite” or the “ArtyCrafty sitting room suite,” produced

in the factory with cheap materials and a thin veneer of a semi-valuable wood. But the times have changed. Many amateurs have learnt to appreciate and to value, the old-fashioned mahogany ■made by a craftsman of bygone days. Somehow we have to inspire these lovers of old-fashioned things to learn and to love the old-fashioned principles and traditions of the old-fashioned religion of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. There is a picture of Puck with these words written underneath, “ Every young fellow should bear in mind that the day will come when he will know as little as his father does now.” So often when someone says that I am oldfashioned, I want to reply, “ Perhaps! But a good deal of what you call old-fashioned I should prefer to call experienced.” Philip C. Williams.