ATHLETICS AND CHRISTIANITY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 433, 8 September 1908, Page 4

ATHLETICS AND CHRISTIANITY.

The Rev. G. K. Aitken delivered a forceful sermon in the local Presbyterian Church on Sunday night on the above subject. IT is text was ; “ Quit you like men : be strong.” (i Cor. xvi 13). He said inter alia : —The tendency of to-day is to regard the physical development of man, not only as most important, but as all that is essential to happiness. Given a strong well knit frame, a sound vigorous body, and a well-trained physical athletic power, and you sum up what a great many people of this age regard as all that is necessary to a complete manhood. The fallacy of this is easily demonstrated. It is the development of all the faculties of mind, soul and body, that true, effective manhood is reached. It is the duty of every young man and woman to do everything that is within their power to develop as high, and cultivate as keen & physical perfection as possible. But the man or woman who does so merely for the enjoyment of physical pleasure, athletic success, or sordid ambition, is not living up to the standard of true manhood, is not reaching that position indicated by our text: “Be strong.” Let me give you an illustration. Take your place at a representative football match. The game begins. The excitement increases. The loud voices of the onlookers betray partizan tendencies, rather than appreciation of well directed and successful efforts to win the game. Is that not so ? Is that not your experience ? I venture to say that such is the case in nine out of every ten football matches that are played to-day. And why ? Because the onlookers have —or many of them have —a monetary interest upon one side or the other scoring a win, and so the prejudice blinds their appreciation of what is good or talented on the side to. which they are opposed. If this is the result of physical development, let me ask you : Is that acquitting yourself like men ? Is that being strong ? Is that a representation of developed manhood ? And what can you think of the individual who, playing in the game, has an interest in his side losing it, and mulls his chances of winning that the opposing side may succeed ? Are such things not done in what you regard as your manly sports ? I know what your answer must be if you speak truly ; for it is notorious pf the sports of to-day that the wins are often arranged before the contests begin. Physical development, unless it is accompanied by moral development, instead of being a desirable thing, may become a curse. Unless your sports are characterised by a high moral ideal, there can be no strong men among you, for the man of high moral instincts must find his pleasure in other directions. Legislators may devise laws and put them on our Statute books, but they can never cure the evil so long as men are morally decrepit. And so long as we regard our sports as a means and medium of increasing our monetary possessions, all the Acts of Parliament will be futile in ridding our race-courses and sports fields of the immoral and unmanly gambling spirit that at present pervades them. Let us set our faces towards a higher and noble moral ideal, and we will be helping towards the Apostle’s injunction : “Quit you like men : be strong.” The development of the merely physical not only makes men immoral, it makes them brutal. I read in the public newspapers the other day a whole column of cablegrams describing one of the most disgraceful and disgusting exhibitions of brute force and endurance between two men in Sydney that any devil’s mind could conjure up. And it is a sad commentary on the teaching of our times (the glorifying of the physical man) that the brutal contest was watched by 18,000 or more spectators, who roared themselves hoarse in their appreciation of one man almost doing another to death. And yet in the polished civilisation we hold up our hands in horror when we read of the gladiatorial combats of the Roman arena, or the bull fights of modern Spain. We talk of the want of moral sentiment in Spain or Rome, we belittle those races because of their mental and moral inferiority, and yet 18,000 of our own race and fellow citizens, in a city the size of Sydney, can look with pleasure upon a scheme no less degrading and demoralising than theirs, and call it the “ manly art.” It is a poor thing to boast that hundreds of years of civilisation and Christian moral teaching has led us no higher than this. We are acquainted with the idea that to possess a good healthy mind we must possess a healthy body. While there is truth in that saying the reverse is also true. If we are to have a perfectly equipped and healthy body, we must possess a pure untarnished mind and moral development. Is it not the case that we have been defying the muscular, and showing contempt for the mental and moral qualities. I have been struck again and again with this fact, by watching the common taste in the selection of literature. The books of fiction, and particularly those which are most deficient in moral tone, and read with avidity and taste, while the scientific and philosophical works of the world’s thinkers are allowed to remain on the shelves year after year with uncut pages. I am not averse to works of fiction being read and assimilated, much of that class of literature is worthy of hearty recommendation, but it is significant of our one-sided development that we confine our reading to one class of literature —and that not always the best. No one can enjoy more than I do the clever sportsman, the fine poise, the agile movement, the

strong active body, aiid the concentration of all its faculties towards a particular object and purpose. I think there is some morbid disposition in the person, who possessing a healthy body, does not enjoy these things. I also claim that the man who most enjoys the sport either as an active exponent of the game or a passive beholder of its progiess, is the man of keen intellect and the high Christian moral instinct. It is possible, nay probable, that in past years the church and Christian men and women have been guilty of a fault in manly development, in that they have tried to develop the Christian and moral side of our manhood, and have ignored or despised the physical and athletic. I hail with delight the more happy and equitable conditions now being adopted by the church which have for their object the physical as well as the moral and intellectual development of the whole manhood. And I have no doubt that in the days that are to come the advantage of the recognition of the needs of the whole man will bear fruit in a development not less physical because of its being more spiritual and morally idealistic, no less moral because of its being more highly intellectual. Let our religion extend beyond the regions of our merely religious Sunday services to the fields cf our physical enjoyments, and into the channels of our intellectual achievements, and we will live and enjoy manly life, and exemplify the true sense and meaning of the Apostle’s words in reference to our faith as to our life and character : “ Quit you like men : be strong.”