Spiritual Invertebrates

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 376, 9 June 1928, Page 8

Spiritual Invertebrates

THE QUIET CORNER

(Written for The Sun by the Rev. Charles Chandler, Assistant City Missioner) This diagnosis of one of our Church passengers is given in all charity, hut at the same time there is nothing to he gained from being blind to the nature of the cause of a great deal of our inefficiency. We have upon a previous occasion considered what we called “Ecclesiastical Flora,” or “Church Flowers,” and ice then relegated our congregations to their horticultural pigeon-holes. On this occasion ice will consider those who arg incapable of such classification. The spiritual invertebrates referred to last week in my article on " Boomerangs ” are those persons. They are nice to know, and yet of very small account when reckoned in the terms of religious progress. Their religion, besides being rather an accident of birth, is also lacking in vitamines. As most of the food eaten by a diabetic turns to sugar, so most of the spiritual diet taken by the spiritual invertebrate fails to build up the muscle, nerve, and tissue of the soul. Their religion is of the as-it-icas-is-now-and-ever-shall-be type, and fails to inspire them into action, or to react through them as a stimulus to others. When shaking hands at the door, as the congregation retires after service, I could, blindfolded, pick out the invertebrates, by their flabby handshake which in an instant sends a shudder down my spine and a prayer out of my heart, for these creatures who are filled with a desire for religious service, and yet lack the determination to translate their wish-bones into spinal vertebrae. Next week: Dino and the Ant.