MOTTO OF SERVICE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 538, 23 May 1933, Page 5

MOTTO OF SERVICE

ideals of peace EXAMPLE WILL DO MORE THAN TII.EO RISING AND ' PREACHING ADDRESS TO ROTAR.Y The speaker at yesterday's luncheon of the Rotorua Rotary Club, was the Rev. J. C. Young, who delivered a most interesting and stirring address "upon the Rotarian and his motto, with special referenee to Rotary International. In his opening, Mr. Young said that he was impressed by the high ideals j for which Rotary stood. He had read ! ahout Rotary and its objects and in those objects he fancied he could hear quite a distinct echo of Christ's sermon on the Mount. He had hesitated as to what line to adopt in his address, but it had been said that. "the cobbler should stick I t0 his last." If this dictumi applied to ' him, his last must be a text, and he would s 'nnmarise his address under 'i the saying, "He profits most who | serves best." This saying had quite a Scriptural sound, but it was after all the Rotary motto in other words. Behind the ideals of 'Rotary there was a great deal of th'e visionary. The Rotarian felt that he could make some p-srsonal contributt;on ;to jthe life of the present day that would hear fruit in the lifetnne of fnture generations. They envisaged ari era of world peace, -and they were prepared to make a. personal contribution towards the realisation of this peace ideal. If this was s-o, .they shared in the great Christian ideal of unity, peace and brotherhood expressed in the word "Service." It was said that Christianity was losing ground, but he thought any person who made such a statement was terribly ignorant of thd life of our changing world. Personally he firmly believed that it was gaining ground and in many ways that were taking us by surprise. Rotary, he considered, was one of these, and through it Christian principles were finding fresh expression. The Peace Ideal There had never been a period in the history of civilisation when the . nations of the world had given more thought to the peace ideal than the period through which we were at present passing. There was a day when Kipling said. — "East is East and "West is West And never the twain shall meet." But such words were not in agreement with the ideal of Rotary International, nor were they in agreement with the teaching of Christianity. The ideals for which they stood fonnd their expression in the lines written by John Oxenham, "In Christianity there is no East or West, in Him no North or South, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth." Thinking Internationally He thought to-day we had reached the stage in world progress when we could no longer 1-ive and think mere■ly nationally. A rapidly progressing world with many and varied changes was making us think otherwise. This was in a great measure due to the speeding up of transport, with the consequent and far reaching affect upon world niarkets. There had never been so many world conferences and conventions, and the fact that the present deprcssion v/as world wide was in itself most significant. We shared a. coinmon loss, but we also shared in the coinmon hope of recovery. In speaking of service, he must stress the fact that ideals could only become effective as they had personal value. In other words, they must become flesh, and find expression through service. It was not so much the machine gun that man feared in time of war, hut the personal power in the form of the man behind the gun. It was so with the Rotarian's motto. It was not the motto itself which would challenge the world, and lead men to live on higher ground, but rather the personal power in the form of the man whose life was an embodiment of this motto. Erequent use was made in Rotary literature of the so-called Golden 'Rule but he ventured to say that those words would mean very little to the Rotarian who was not prepared to apply them to all his human relationships. They belonged to a movement which was functioning in many countries today, and' there was hope for the future when representative professional and business men of all classes were prepared to grapple with the great question of world fellowship through service. He felt sure that Rotary was going to make a very definite contribution towards the creation of a better and happiex world, but he also believed that more could he achieved through example than through much theorising and preaching.