Disease- Free World to be Our Heaven

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 122, 13 August 1927, Page 4

Disease- Free World to be Our Heaven

Bishop Barnes on Lord Lister's Belief, FAMOUS SURGEON'S <Xjm P ORIGIN The religious principles whi.k i tied Lord Lister's rh-w^T I '"^ I ?uided his action, the paS" a- | lasm which .served his genuS peciarlly the inestimable D O4 humanity o£ his i ife work „ . hu t' themes of the S era on "f* i hy the Bishop of BirminthaiT?' 1 " ‘ Pntenarv memorial held in cstminster Abbey JL*? The steady persistence Lister pursued a single bi. 1 throughout his cua-eer was bl? 1 he said. Where a lesser m^ Ulai l ave been intoxicated by arrogant by the distinctions upon him. Lister preserved ™ o *'- which was sought truth patiently and!. *■ willing to examine new methods which might i: modify earlier conclusions* b " m fact, the true scientific 'spin, the '"sight of genius '*« \\ hence came his quiet his steady trust worthiness-" Bishop. -He owed much fo 1 - Quaker ancestry. The rr-ot 0 father whose name ho 'bori'S orkshire Quaker of humble £?, * who came to London and w tobacconist shop. His i > eca ™e a wine merchant in London • I orought to prosperity a business | h!s father inherited. Quaker\ro b .. and Quaker enterprise in tradeZ in so many instances, to wealth FATHER A SCIENTIST TOO Lister s father was not only ... cessful in business; he was also . tZ of conspicuous scientific ability r ideals of his religious comaumcaused the city merchant to skua T amusement in which others Wo .' spend their leisure. So he took up : study of optics and made ininor--discoveries by which he deserved be remembered, and for which he * elected to the Royal Society. "Lister’s mother belonged, like - husband, to the Society of Filter She had been, like her widow--mother, a teacher at a Quaker Bch t , in Yorkshire, and apparently had Inblood in her veins. “Perhaps it is not fanciful to see jr the ability of Lister's father, and in- - of Celtic imagination d«hed from his mother, the source of hit genius. On such a question of heredity we cannot speak with eonfdence, but no one would deny ihn Lister received in his home life, xritn its traditions of self-discipline’ ud high endeavour, influences which m»d» his character the worthy servant c! his genius. CHANGED HIS RELIGION “Throughout his life Lister appt, to have retained the Christian tain of his childhood. When he married the daughter of Syme, the profess., at Edinburgh under whom he worked he ceased to belong to the Society Friends because she was not of tha body, and he then became a meffiu of the Scottish Episcopal Church. It youth he had been ready to disc’j religious questions, but in mature li: he, like most men, was reticent at his spiritual beliefs. It is known tfc:; he combined the hope of personal immortality with faith in the goodtc.v of tjae Creator. And when his life wit drawing to its close he publicly espressed his conviction that There i? no antagonism between the religion Jesus Christ and any fact scientifically established.* t “Sometimes when we speculate to the future of humanity wo tolni of the highly evolved forms of &* that loaded the earth in past age;. They disappeared. Why? Prob&i; minute organisms swept them awe; Either the virulence of such organises increased or the animals attacked to* their power of resistance. .. sw THE VITAL DIFFERENCE “Is such an end to be the fate fi! humanity? Many a zoologist wouii .answer 'Yes.’ And yet man difte from all other animals that have coc* from earth’s teeming womb, ptheologian has justification in holtiiw that the characteristic developingand powers of the human mind *• man it part. He has, in convention* language, a soul, some quality of p*' sonality, of survival * value ln_J» scheme of the universe. Is it that by virtue of these same powers man will conquer disease aw pain, and thus in the end prepare u way for a kingdom of God upon£ar>r. Will medical and moral victories coffbine to make human life equal human hopes and dreams? “None can say. We build for ** unknown future. Yet the ments of tin* leaders of human Pf 0 ' gress give substance to our hope*